The Big Bang Symphony: A Novel of Antarctica

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317 55 It was nearly dusk as Rosie’s sky blue ’88 Toyota Short Bed bounced down the two-track dirt road leading to her land. She parked in front of the trailer. It wasn’t much: tiny with rounded ends, a little dilapidated, white with pale green trim, already getting swallowed by the summer’s tall grasses. Just two months ago, the grasses had been bright green, ripe and juicy, their seed clusters tight buds. Now in August, they were golden spikes, scenting the air with their summer decay, reaching halfway up the windows of her trailer. Rosie climbed down from the truck and paused, facing the mountains, breathing the thin, clean air. A light breeze swept off the slopes of the Bitterroots. Alice had told her that what she faced now was part of the Idaho Batholith, enormous masses of igneous rock that had intruded some two hundred million years ago. At some point, the top of this batholith had slid off to the east, forming the Sapphire Block. The remaining Bitterroots granite had been deeply carved by glaciers. That carving created the beautifully jagged skyline. The lazy sunlight began giving way to evening, turning the mountains into a purple silhouette against the Montana sky. As the sun went down, so too did the breeze die, and now Rosie could hear the soft lapping of the stream. She looked in that direction and saw, curling above the alders that lined the stream, a blue strand of smoke. She walked at first and then ran to the place where the alders thinned before opening into a small golden meadow. There, next to the stream, she found an orange plastic tube tent strung between two trees. A few yards away, a small fire of green twigs smoldered. “Hey!” she shouted. “Who are you?” The plastic sides of the tent bustled and bulged. A man emerged and stood, teetering a bit, as if he’d just awakened. He said, “Babe! ” She didn’t recognize him at first. Earl’s head and face were shaved, and there was dirt caked under his fingernails and in the creases of his skin. He looked old and naked, though he wore a flannel shirt tucked into jeans. He limped badly as he approached her. Rosie hadn’t heard from Earl since they’d flown back to Christchurch together, in the same plane with Larry. She’d gone straight on to the States, Larry went into the hospital, and Earl had been arrested. Now she hugged him hard and said, “God, I’ve been worried about you! Where’ve you been? How’d you find me?” “Larry lived, you know,” he said, as if that explained everything. “Yeah. I know.” “Would have been murder one.” Rosie nodded. “I know. Apparently he’s fine.” “You’re not still hung up on the fucker, are you?” Rosie wrapped her arms around herself. When she got off the Ice a year and a half ago, she’d gone directly to Oregon. Max had married and moved to Portland. Her father had surfaced, having called the month before from Anchorage to say he was living there for the time being. Her mother and Jed lived together in a small yellow house, surrounded by overgrown wildflowers, on the edge of Newberg. One climbing rose tackled the left side of the house, its white blossoms spilling onto the weeds below like oversized snowflakes. Jed had opened the door and enclosed her in a bear hug so hard it hurt, but her mother sat at the kitchen table, weeping into her hands, afraid to look. Rosie finally knelt on the kitchen floor and pried her mother’s hands from her face. “You’re exactly Rosie,” her mother said through sheets of tears. “It’s you, exactly.” 318 She hadn’t been able to convince her mother to come see her land in Montana. Not until there was a proper house and bed on the place. Rosie said she could stay in a motel in town, but her mother claimed she couldn’t leave her job. Jed came, though, right away, and camped for two weeks, right here by the stream. He had a job this summer, building a house in Newberg, and the crew was working seven days a week. Rosie encouraged him to stick with it. He promised he’d come next summer and help her build a...