The trail, if it could still be called that, to the crater looked like a desert above the clouds. It was brown and gray and she was alone. The fog settled below, hiding everything she’d known before. Iris had expected to smell ash– like the bottom of a cold charcoal grill– but all she could smell was her sunscreen and the salt in her running nose.

Everyone from the trailhead had passed her. Maybe they were already headed back down, and would soon pass her again. As she stepped forward, she slid back. The inclination was so steep and the sand– or was it gravel? Or ash?– was so soft that physical momentum had never seemed quite so impossible.

"Just put one foot in front of the other," YouTube videos had chimed while she researched the hike, as if the difficulty would be in her mind and not in the way this place was shaped. Or the way the skin of Mount Saint Helens was ground into so many millions of tiny particles. Or the way her body was shutting down.

Liturgies that Iris had mumbled so many times at her church back home fluttered against her mind like trapped dragonflies.

Leader: Do not let weariness deter you from sanctification.

Congregation: We will carry our crosses gladly.

Leader: Even if it hurts.

Congregation: Even if it hurts.

Before Iris bought her permit to hike Mount Saint Helens, she hadn’t told anyone about Josh hitting her. That would be slander, disrespectful, the first step on a marriage’s downward path. Such words could mean the destruction of everything.

#

She had expected the plane trip out here to be thrilling, freeing. She was doing it. Her idea, her plan, her risk. But the old fears of flying she had as a kid crept back like stray cats to be fed. As they tilted toward Portland, she leaned to look out the window, trying to embrace the vulnerability. Mt. Hood– unmistakable, exactly as she'd imagined– stood proud and perfectly pointed in a cape of clouds. The plane jolted, as if to remind her that none of this was logical. A giant tube of metal trying to fly, her going to do what she was doing. She remembered reading how birds experienced turbulence too, and used it to fly better. She heard that you could think of plane turbulence as a car on a gravel road. But her stomach dropped with every small rock of air. Then, she saw it. Another unmistakable thing on the horizon after all the time she spent studying it from a screen. It was small and strikingly flat-topped next to the postcard Hood, but as she traced the up-across-down shape of Mount Saint Helens, glutinous fear spread through her.

Was this what it felt like? Deciding what she wanted? Did it smell like seat cushions that could be used as a floatation device and paper cups of black coffee? Did it sound like the engines and the muffled air vents? Did it taste sweet, like the cinnamon cookies that crumbled over her Patagonia zip-up? Did it feel surprisingly comfortable, like the hiking clothes she’d thrifted? Their still-attached tags were like epitaphs to the sliver of space between going and not going. Did it feel like flying with a few bumps in the road, or just waiting to fall?

#

Anything like a trail had long since disappeared. Everything that rose ahead of her was now the singular, severe Way Up. At the section where the trees themselves stopped trying to ascend the mountain, before the summit had pushed aside the fog to look down on its pilgrims, there had been an eternity of boulders with worn wooden posts marking the course like driftwood in a sea of clouds. She hadn’t trained her arms and shoulders to lift herself over huge rocks and down and over again for three hours. Her upper body was pinched and stinging while her lower body faded away.

Now, after that terrible boulder section, it was just the sand-gravel-ash and the summit, stark against the sky. The damp cloud cover was gone, and she saw how far she had to go. She was hot in the barren sun, but the wind chilled her when she stripped down a layer. She had expected to feel relief when the top finally came into sight. Now it seemed to taunt her, the vastness ahead so uncertain. The ambiguous area between her and where the sky met the crater’s lips was hard to measure. Even the weathered trail markers didn’t venture this far up. And there were no people up ahead to compare to the size of ants or crickets or lemurs on the bald neck of the mountain that led– unless she was terribly lost– to the volcano’s gaping mouth. There was nothing to compare anything to. She couldn’t tell if the way forward was a continuous incline or if it dipped and rose in ragged, wounded dunes. Everything was the same color. Everything was the same texture. Everything was the same. She was what didn’t belong.

#

When the church leaders preached on the topic of godly marriage to the hushed sanctuary, they never said the unspeakable words, like hit or abuse.

“Marital strife is private, between a man and his wife and God,” they assured the silent women, the nodding men. Even the wide-eyed children were shushed on their parents’ laps, not permitted to make a public fuss. “If you’re having problems, talk to one of us.”

The way it worked is that you had to make an online request to meet with a pastor, and if you didn’t pick from the names on the drop-down menu– Mark, Bill, David, Peter– they assigned you one.

“I’m glad you came to me in private, because you never want to gossip about your husband,” the pastor had said, showing Iris into his office.

“Marriage isn’t supposed to be easy,” he continued– it was David because she hadn’t known which one to choose, they all seemed the same. “That’s exactly why God gives it to us, to test our obedience and submission to Him. He always has His reasons for bringing hardship into our lives.”

“In my counseling request, I mentioned that my husband…mistreated me.”

She couldn’t bring herself to say the actual word, just as she hadn’t been able to type it in the online form.

“We're often shocked when our loved ones disappoint us,” Pastor David cut in. “But we Christians of all people should remember that humans aren’t perfect. God's will is. What God brought together, let no man– or woman– separate.”

He tilted his head and did a little splay out of his palms toward her when he said "or woman" as if he was doing Iris a favor.

“It’s been really hard,” she said.

“Even godly men need grace. I encourage you to pray for the strength to forgive Josh. And pray for him as he deals with his own trials of these anger issues, as we call them now. We all have our crosses to carry. What is the rest of the liturgy? I know you know it.”

“We all have our burdens to bear.”

“Don’t give up on what you know in your heart to be right.”

After telling her that her meeting time was up, he stood. “Remember, it was never supposed to be easy.”

#

Now, five weeks after buying the permit, and 16 hours after landing at PDX, Iris was most of the morning into the all-day climb and feeling even more inadequate than she had predicted. She wiped her nose on her damp sleeve. She’d read in the blogs that this was the hardest part. This once seemingly helpful information now crushed her, because she already spent everything she had. To what? Make it through the not-hardest part?

The blogs said this section would feel like taking one step forward and two back. The phrase seemed habitual, like required liturgy in every article, comment, and review–

Leader: One step forward.

Congregation: Two steps back.

No one had written about scraping every crevice of the mind and body for something left to give and finding nothing but viscous dirt under your fingernails. She had imagined hard. She didn’t know if this was how she had imagined it or not.

#

That same afternoon after meeting with Pastor David, she had pulled her unused hiking boots from the shelf in the laundry room. She bought them thinking maybe she and Josh would be one of those couples who just left for the weekend to go hiking. She laced them up and set off into the neighborhood.

She walked all the way to the pond with the storybook bridge before realizing the warmth on her heels was the fiery formation of blisters, like tiny volcanoes. Her socks were meant for running errands. Breathless from the unfamiliar pace, she sat down on the bench inside the gazebo and called Felicity. She wondered what she should say first. That Pastor David had told her not to tell anyone? That she’d thought about leaving Josh for a while now? That she didn’t even want to tell Felicity but that Felicity was the closest thing to someone she could talk to? That all hope for understanding was on a knife-edge teeter?

“It seems like a sign,” she said, attempting horizon-filled confidence.

“It just seems so random,” said Felicity, with a tired sigh. Her three-year-old son’s cries mixed with the sound of the kitchen faucet in the background.

“I mean– Noah, here, eat your applesauce sweetie– Oregon? Why can’t you do a hike around here? Rebekah and them just got back from Cades Cove, they said it was really nice. The leaves will be turning soon. I didn’t know you were a hiker.”

“It’s in Washington actually,” said Iris, the restlessness in her body spreading like an itch. “And it’s not random. I’ve been fascinated with Mount Saint Helens since this documentary came on TV when I was a kid. I wanted to go with Josh for our honeymoon but he said it was too far. And the other night when I was upset, I don't know why I was thinking about it but I started reading blogs and it seems harder than anything I’ve ever done but I want to challenge myself you know? I thought, maybe I could be one of those people. And everyone said it’d be impossible to get a permit at this point in the summer. But I kept checking. And then today, when there was one, it felt like– God.”

“Why were you upset?”

“Things have been really hard with us.”

“Honey, marriage isn’t easy. You don’t need to go across the country on some crazy hike, I can tell you that right here.”

“But I really need to process…and...pray.”

The word pray felt like healthy brown rice crackers in Iris’ mouth, empty and stale, yet enough of something to stick to her throat.

“God doesn’t want us to run away when things get hard.”

“It’s not just hard. It’s– ”

Iris took a breath. Felicity waited. Even Noah with his applesauce on the other end was quiet, waiting for her to say the unacceptable.

“He hit me. I mean, it was just once. But it was in the face.”

As if it mattered where. What a stupid detail to add, she thought, feeling a warm flush on her cheeks and neck. Felicity’s kitchen faucet stopped. Everything seemed to stop for a few seconds.

“I’m sorry,” said Felicity.

It was quiet. Felicity must have gone outside or shut some door or maybe Noah just really loved his applesauce. Everyone waited for Iris in silence again, like she was playing chess on TV. She wanted to lay down on the bench and sleep to the sound of someone listening, maybe even understanding. But it wasn’t time yet. She went on.

“I’ve even been thinking about…”

“What?”

Iris felt pressure on her chest. Her next breath was more of a gasp.

“Leaving him. That’s what I need to figure out.”

There was another pause, irritated this time. A blazing cardinal appeared, startling Iris with the sudden scratch of its talons on the gazebo railing. Its black eyes shot at Iris like darts. “This is really serious,” said Felicity, the trance fractured.

Iris felt an ache in her lungs. She waited, maybe for a small breeze to unglue her sweaty skin from the humid air.

Felicity continued, “You made vows to each other.”

Even if it hurts?

“Do you think I should stay? It was only the one time, but it’s abuse, right?”

Iris looked around quickly. There was no one to overhear the hurried, untested word as it crackled in the air, released from her pulsing throat. The word had probably never been spoken between them or anyone at the church– unless they were talking about an organization that helped prevent the abuse of women and children in some faraway place where people did terrible things because they didn’t know God. The cardinal left in an agitated rustle, as if offended.

“I’m not saying this is easy, ” said Felicity, a tinge of rehearsal in her voice, or maybe regret. “But divorce is a sin.”

Iris missed the bird, even its tiny dart eyes.

Felicity continued, “You need to pray about it. The question is not if you should stay, it’s how to get the strength to do it.”

Iris stood up.

“That's why I’m going on this hike.”

#

Her hands and wrists ached from gripping her poles. Now, she had to jam the poles down even harder to keep from losing the ground that cost so much. Back when she started training, she imagined how her body would toughen, making up for all the hiking she’d never done, that they’d never done. With enough practice, all skin could become calloused. She never chose any of this because it was easy. Maybe there was something left in her now, enough to drive her hold into the mountain’s scalp. She conjured small, small steps.

Leader: While it might seem hard–

(Iris in the congregation whispers: It’s agony. )

Leader: It’s so worth it.

Congregation: Our reward is waiting.

Felicity: Things can and do get better.

Leader: Remember, don’t give up.

Congregation: Even if it hurts.

In a trekking novel, she’d read that you should count to 10 and then start over. Just make it to the next 10. But her legs were shaking so bad that she wasn’t sure what was a shake and what was a feeble step. If she laid down, someone would find her– one of the fast, experienced hikers– and send help. It would be nice on the rescue stretcher. She could close her eyes and be in pain without having to move. Except, where would they take her? Her emergency contacts would make the pain worse. In marriage too, she had imagined hard. She just hadn’t imagined the inability to keep going. She’d done everything they told her. The hiking blogs and the church liturgies swirled inside her like nausea.

Leader: Bring apples and chocolate for energy.

Congregation: You chose this, remember? And no one ever said it would be easy.

Leader: Easy is not the point.

Congregation: Stay hydrated, you’ll be fine.

The trailhead seemed like days ago instead of hours– that squishy, mudded path wrapped around the bottom of the mountain like a blanket. The squirrels had teased her in that soft dawn lit beginning, asking to play.

That morning, the Climbers Bivouac had been cozy. When she rose from sleeping in her rental car, she watched hikers stirring with the Pacific Northwest sunrise, throwing off sleeping bags with the swish-swish of zippers and water-resistant recycled polyester, lacing up boots with tugs of resolution. The bobbing of headlamps. The clamor of the vault toilet bathroom door. She’d thought, this is what it’s like .

She could just retrace her steps. The three hours back through the boulders would be excruciating but wouldn’t it be faster on the way down? Then she’d get in her car and drive to the airport. She’d get a coffee at that sunflower-colored kiosk in the terminal with the piano player. She’d fly back across the country, too tired to be afraid, strapped into rest at last. The plane seatbelt in her hands would be silky-smooth from use and awkward like a snake with a head that was far too big and heavy– like a child using a five-gallon bucket as a helmet in a make-believe war. She would seem out of place when she waited on the curb outside baggage claim back home with her backpack that she’d spent too much money on, with all its dangling straps. But she didn’t belong here either. She was sliding down the mountain, not climbing up. He would pick her up, make a few jokes about her attempt. They would go home. Maybe if she tried harder, he wouldn’t hit her again. Maybe that time had been a fluke, a glitch– like her idea to climb Saint Helens. Like the unexpected permit that glowed blue on her screen. A square of possibility, marked “A” like some luxury soap bar brand. Available! A for Adventure.

“I can’t believe I found one!” she’d said that day, the thrill compromising her guard.

Josh looked at her e-receipt like it was a child’s drawing and he was a fine art collector. The “A” did look like an alphabet block now. A for Absurd.

"Aren't you afraid of flying?" he asked, like an accusation.

"I was. I don't know if I still am."

I haven't had the chance to practice, you never want to go anywhere, she thought about adding, but knew she was already pushing her luck.

He looked down at his phone again.

“The permits are really hard to get,” she tried carefully, her vigilance reclaiming its hold. It was terrifying how quickly he could fluctuate between boredom and rage– but now he didn't seem to even care enough to be angry. He scrolled as he continued talking, as if their conversation was a bag of chips.

“You know it rains there nonstop, right? And why do you want to go by yourself? Or at all? You’re not a hiker.”

I’ve always liked the rain. And I never wanted to do any of this by myself .

A for Alone.

Maybe it was good he didn’t look up. The last time he’d really looked her in the face, he’d been aiming his hand. She was not a hiker.

Leader: That’s not being a good wife.

Congregation: Portland? Isn’t that like a six-hour flight?

Leader: Try having faith instead of trying to control.

Congregation: Aren’t you afraid?

Iris: Yes.

#

There was a woman sitting on a solid outcropping between the sand-gravel-ash slopes. Iris sat too, fighting the urge to lay and let the hump of her Camelbak suspend her above the toothy crumbles of the rock. “Don’t rest too much or you’ll lose momentum,” the blogs warned. Iris had lost her momentum long ago. She opened a peanut butter protein bar and tried to chew with shaking jaws. It tasted more like the rancid back-of-the-throat tickle of vomit. She tried to push her feet into the ground so her knees wouldn’t bounce but she had no more strength and the bottoms of her feet hurt, so she let herself flutter. The woman was wearing a faded cobalt blue down jacket, patched with flower-printed duct tape.

“There’s a better napping spot just up ahead, under the shade of that big rock,” the woman said, twisting to look up the mountain to another outcrop– an island in the sea of soft slope. “Just up ahead being relative of course, in this terrain.”

Iris made a frail sound like a laugh. The woman either read her mind or her weakness was just that obvious. Permission settled around them.

“You’ve done this before?” Iris’ mouth felt quivery and detached from her body.

“Every year. Since…this is year 12.”

“It’s worth it?”

“I still always ask myself that question when I’m right around there.” The woman pointed with her pole to some undefined spot that Iris had come from.

“Does it get easier?”

“You would think. But every year I’m tireder. Sometimes we get to choose where it hurts. I chose this right here.” She patted her calf.

The woman was breathing heavily, her face to the bleached bright horizon where a chill wind gathered.

“I thought about turning around,” said Iris.

“Most of us do. But you can’t really. You can take the trail down. But you’ll always wonder. And if you do go all the way up, there’s a part of you that will always be up there. Things like this don’t leave us the way we were.”

The woman leaned into her hiking poles and stood up with a rocking heave.

“It’s hard, but you can do it.”

Iris watched the woman ascend the sand-colored zig-zagging slope toward the summit. Her progress was slow, like the dragging of the day. Maybe that highest visible point was a false summit– as the blogs had warned of– blocking from view the real thing. Iris hadn’t thought to ask the woman if it was real or false. Now she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

She felt unreplenished by the rest break– the deep void of her body unfilled by the feeble snack. She wrapped her trembling hands around her hiking poles and lifted herself once more. 

#

Checking her clock had proved disheartening the whole day. Hours had either passed at double the rate the blogs averaged for certain portions of the trail, or time hardly passed at all while Iris’ hourglass of energy drained. Time dragged on indefinitely until she saw a mirage ahead of her. Two people had popped out of the ground. She realized that because everything was the same color, she hadn’t noticed that the ground sank before it rose again. She wanted to lay down right there in the agonizing confirmation of this new undulation in her path, the possibility she had feared. But then the mirage people would see her, and her pride was not completely wrung dry like the rest of her. They approached at an alarming rate. Were they skipping? They were a young couple, sliding down on the loose earth as if for fun. Their smiles stirred a thick anger inside her. Weren’t they exhausted?

“Almost there!” one of them called down. He was wearing a brick red jacket that probably cost more than a cross-country plane ticket but could roll into the size of a baseball and also protect you from any kind of weather.

“This is the hardest part,” his partner said, a lithe twentysomething girl with a braid. She was wearing another expensive-looking jacket, like people wore who did a lot of things like this. It was cobalt blue– like the older woman’s, except flawless, made of quilted down as thin as breath, as if the person wearing it was never actually cold.

“Looks easier coming down,” Iris said, trying to make it sound like a joke, wishing they wouldn’t watch her pant like a dying animal. They could at least pretend they’d taken steps as small as hers.

“Gravity,” the girl chuckled. To her dismay, Iris realized they were stopping for water. Their ease made her feel more alone than when she couldn’t see anyone.

“I’m training for Hood,” Red Windbreaker said, nodding to the fairy tale peak in the distance. “This part gets me every time.”

"You're so funny," said the girl, giving him a fake push, like she had an energy reserve just for silly, flirty things. "He's actually a beast," she said to Iris, as she lifted a neatly-stickered bottle to her lips.

" You're the beast," the man said.

Iris felt heat creep up her chest like a pulsing snake.

Leader: All things are possible.

Congregation: This isn’t so hard.

Iris: It is for me.

“Good luck,” said Flawless Cobalt, as she screwed the cap back on her Nalgene, one of its stickers glittering in the sun. Iris had never hated people with Nalgenes until now when they seemed to imply that it wasn’t a hard enough hike to merit her sloshing Camelbak. The couple cascaded on like perfectly happy chatty mountain goats.

It’s not even hot out. 

I feel great. 

Should we stop at that burger place or just get groceries on the way home? 

Dude, I’m not even hungry yet.

Iris drove her poles into the sand. She took faster steps, faster than she’d taken in hours. That crater would look her in the face, reckon with her choosing it. She would not leave without making it see her.

What if I am one of those people too?

She forced her burning muscles on. Pastor David’s voice filled her aching head.

“Men often struggle with the burden of our many responsibilities. And our wives also have the responsibility–”

She skewered the flesh of this cruel mountain-god with her hiking poles.

“– to support them, to forgive them and see beyond their shortcomings. To stay, as Christ stayed when he was beaten and ridiculed, and even crucified. And I know, we men need a lot of forgiveness.”

If she kept stabbing it, maybe this fucking mountain would explode again in fury. At least that could count as acknowledgement from an entity more powerful than her.

Leader: Marriage isn’t a promise to be perfect.

Congregation: It’s a sacred vow to endure imperfection together.

Iris: Actually, it’s a promise to love.

Leader: And sometimes, unfortunately, we hurt the ones we love.

Congregation: But love does not keep a record of wrongs.

Iris: Love also does not intentionally strike the beloved’s face. Or bite them with every breath. Love does not do the opposite of love .

She lifted herself with a bitter grunt up to a particularly rocky part of the sliding earth. Fucking Mount Saint Fucking Helens. Some saint you are, probably named by some pastor somewhere.

Ahead rose the steepest incline yet, not a dune so much as a cliff, blocking everything else ahead from view. How many more of these could there be? If it was this high, how severe was the undulation after it and how steep was the next rise?

"I hate you," she said aloud, not sure if it was to the mountain or to Pastor David or to the Nalgene Couple. Or to herself. Or to him.

"You're pathetic," Josh had said, she couldn't even remember which day.

"I hate you," he yelled another day. And she hadn't said it back. She had stayed. That was pathetic.

She bent her legs and lowered herself. With her back finally on the ground, cradled in soft ash-sand-gravel just as she had imagined, she squinted into the sky. Above the harsh haze of the horizon, there was clear blue like a delicious pool. The sun was already moving to the side with the toiling hours and so she could stare straight up. She could close her eyes. She could wait for night to cover her, hold her, take her away.

Felicity: I didn’t know you were a hiker.

Josh: You’re not a hiker.

Nalgene Couple: Yeah dude, doesn’t look like you are.

A vast, jagged voice, maybe Mount Saint Helens: Are you?

#

After minutes, maybe hours, she turned to look at the false summit again. The patched-up blue jacket woman was back in view, she must have risen out of a valley. She was standing to rest with her back turned to Iris. From that dead, barren false summit, the woman could probably see the last stretch before the rim, she was probably calculating the distance, taking a final break before the push. That’s what hikers did, people who made it to the top of these things.

Iris: Maybe I could be.

Mount Saint Helens: I’m waiting.

Iris was afraid to know how long there was left, and her mouth felt too dry to shout anyway. She imagined what the woman must be looking at now, a gentle slope swerving down and then up to the crater’s lips at last. Maybe it was farther than the woman had thought, because her head seemed bowed in consternation, or despair. Iris lifted herself to a sitting position. She couldn’t imagine going forward. But going back would be worse.

“How far?” she tried to yell. The sound stuck to her throat like those sour protein bars. She sucked at her dusty Camelbak valve. Either the new plastic bitterness had worn off or her ability to taste had. The woman turned, waving one pole when she saw Iris.

“It’s magnificent!” she yelled.

She started coming down toward Iris, her unzipped jacket flapping in the wind. Why was she coming back? Iris stood up quickly, in case the woman thought she was hurt and was coming to help. But the woman was looking at the ground, moving carefully, sliding down in the sand. Her face was red and her gray hair had escaped from its ponytail to half-stick to her face and half-fly away from it. Iris felt her nose run again. Why is she turning around? The woman looked up again– smiling, raw and panting– then pointed back to the summit with her pole. She kept pointing.

Wait. "Is that…it?” yelled Iris, not caring if she sounded desperate. She was aware of her legs suddenly, caked in rock and sand like those bananas rolled in chocolate and nuts and coconut flakes.

“Just a few more steps!” yelled the woman.

As Iris moved, the woman was something– someone– to measure distance by. One step forward became only one step back and then just steps forward, as the ground hardened, the indecisive sandy-ash sobering up as it neared the throne of its queen. As they met, the woman moved out of the way for Iris.

“Still worth it?” asked Iris.

“I’ll let you decide. Congratulations.”

The woman continued down and Iris stepped where the hissing earth filled the woman's footprints. Soon the mountain in front of her became inverted below her, and ahead was just sky, sky, sky.

A fierce wind threw small particles into Iris’ face. The powerful crater had called her all the way, and had made the way so cruelly hard. Red like living rust and gray like the deepest, sternest slate and black like a night with dry eyes and tawny-brown like sleeping mountain lions– all these colors made a face that made a broken valley that made a slope toward the far and lower rim, as if to pour all that presence into the cloudless sky. So this is what it feels like. To stand here. To see you.

A few rocks clattered into the steaming desolation below. Into that mouth that had uttered such destruction.

You did not come to see me, that vast voice replied. You came to be seen.

Iris shivered in the altitude. She strained to keep her eyes open against the wind and the sun and the tears and the loose, stinging skin cells of the crater that was staring her straight back in the face.

"I am one of those people," she said. She felt in her mouth the tremble of power.

#

Her legs wobbled for the five-hour descent, unreliable structures for her body weight. Her sense of balance had long withered away and its absence left a hollow fear on the back of her neck as bleak rain coated the boulder section of the trail. Her legs were so shaky that she thought she might fall into the long, black gaps between the car-sized chunks of mountain. A dense fog covered everything that wasn’t a few feet in front of her, even the skeletal trail markers. She saw footprints in the mud and she hoped those feet had not been lost. Maybe they were the woman's. Or even the Nalgene Couple’s. She gave up on her legs and moved by lifting herself from one seated position to the next with a dull fire in her arms and shoulders, each time feeling that the cold, wet chair of the pumice boulder was the most comfortable place she’d ever sat, and that she could just stay there. Just stay there. Just stay. Even if it hurt, it was better than moving. She knew the voice that said to stay, and it was not the voice that had pulled her to the top of the mountain, right to the ancient lips of the crater.

#

“I made it,” she typed.

The text took a while to go through, blue straining against an invisible force. She jerked her seat into full recline. She was too tired to take off her boots and get in the back of the car. Too tired to eat the sandwich she’d left in a cooler bag. It had not been easier going down. Each moment had been more painful than the last. Perhaps the hardest part was what she’d imagined would be the easiest– the final soft padded forest with the squirrels and the gentle paths like normal hiking trails. She’d given all that she had a thousand times and still the distance seemed to expand before her.

From her hand came a chime like shattering crystal. Of course he had been waiting. He liked her close enough for her to smell his disdain. He liked it when she tried to make him look until she feared his attention.

“I read it actually isn’t as hard as people think,” his text said. “If you get out of your head.”

Her fingers moved fast, even though she was shaking. She jammed her response into the screen like poles into gravel.

“I mean that I made my decision.”

The little white “delivered” appeared right away, as if it had already happened long ago. She swung the driver’s door, groaned as her feet touched the ground, and hobbled to open the hatchback. She sat there– staring at some obnoxiously peppy returning hiker straight in the face until he looked away a little wiser– and then pulled off her boots. Her feet were clean when eased out of her dusty, ash-covered wool socks. And there were no blisters. She learned a few weeks ago that it wasn’t calloused, toughened skin that prevented blisters, it was just the right socks.

The day’s ending was splotched by the shadows of trees and the last cars in the parking lot as it slowly surrendered to the mountain’s shadow. That presence that was earlier so unmovable to Iris, now moved over her like a blanket. She closed the door behind her and crawled into the makeshift bed that had haunted her for the last 13 hours. In the hatchback window, she saw her reflection. She hadn’t looked herself in the face all day. I'll get myself a cobalt down jacket, as light as air, the color of the sky above Mount Saint Helens. Something that can be patched up and continue on, never the same as before. The type of jacket that people with aching legs wore, people who did these sorts of things.

The silky inside of her sleeping bag coated her bare feet like cool water. And with the swish-swish of the water-resistant recycled polyester around her, she went to sleep.