Fall

She had to watch her step. Jagged rocks jutted through mica-flecked soil, ready to trip her. Aspens and silverleaf oak, now gold and red and shedding their leaves, shone in late-afternoon sun. If she succumbed to staring, she could pitch over the edge and die, so she settled for deep inhales of ponderosa pine. He walked behind her, certain-footed, exclaiming over the view.

They were from the city below, at an elevation 5,000 feet lower. They were here because he was going back to work on Monday after a vacation, and because there was no sign of fall where they were from. The weather cooled all right, but for the most part, the landscape carried on monotonously. Cacti might prick with fruit, sure, but as far as she was concerned that was no competition for a traditional autumn show.

‘Hi,’ she said, ‘excuse me.’ She edged past a man and a woman. The man had a baby strapped to his back. The baby carried a pine cone, periodically tapping the man’s head with it.

They would not see deer or bears today, though they’d seen both the last time they’d hiked this trail. Too many people cluttered the path, passing each other with care when the ridge trail widened enough.

‘I want a baby,’ she said when the couple was out of earshot.

A raven flew overhead.

‘Whoa,’ he said.

‘What?’ She zipped and unzipped her parka, irritated.

‘The raven. It was really low.’

The diamonds on her engagement ring had swung around to face her palm again. She thumbed the largest diamond, then turned around the ring.

The odor of decomposing leaves wafted up from the streambed far below, smelling of diapers.

‘You’re not going to say anything?’ She asked.

‘About what?’ He accidentally kicked a rock at her.

‘I said I wanted a baby.’ The kicked rock landed on the rim of her hiking boot, then dropped inside the shoe. It was too complicated to unlace, so she would endure the constant chafing and probable blister as the small stone slid back and forth under her heel.

After a tense switchback down, he said, ‘You want something new every day.’

‘I’ve wanted a baby since before I met you,’ she said as they dropped lower. ‘You knew that from the start.’

The ridge opened into a forest on their left. She looked up from the trail. Just within eyeshot was another small family: man, woman, baby. They lay scattered on the grass like leaves, among leaves, with leaves falling onto them as the man snapped photographs with one hand.

Her ring had wronged itself again.

‘We’re not ready to have a baby,’ he said.

She returned her eyes to the ground. ‘Nobody’s ever ready to have a baby.’ She quoted her therapist. ‘Even if everything is perfect, in order, you know… no one’s really ready.’

‘Well, we’re really not ready,’ he said.

‘What would make us ready?’ She futilely righted her engagement ring. Her wedding band, perfectly sized, remained in place above it.

Despite the chill in the air, a flower whose name she did not know bloomed all around her. The blossoms were yellow. She’d only just now noticed the flowers after two hours of this, because the fallen aspen leaves were the same color. She’d try to remember the flowers for home, so she could identify them. What could bloom in this climate? She wanted to know.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

Watching her feet did not prevent her from slipping. A boulder gave way when she stepped on it. He grabbed her backpack as though this could keep her on the trail. If the boulder had been on the cliff side, she could be dead by now. But she kept walking, now with a little limp, as the boulder padded down the forest slope.

‘Jilly! Smile at JJ. JJ! Don’t let your sister eat bark! Jilly, take Aunt Jane’s hand!’

The aroma of diapers again, and another photo-taking family below. She wanted to watch but feared another misstep.

‘I don’t know,’ he said again, as though he’d been thinking about it continuously since his previous not-knowing.

She said, ‘Stopping,’ to warn him, then stooped to pick a flower for her the buttonhole at her neck.

‘That’s only going to die now,’ he pointed out.

She ignored him and resumed walking. Maybe they should turn around, she thought. It was growing difficult to discern her feet from tree roots and rocks. Her vision was not good.

Maybe at the bottom he’d know what would make them ready, in his opinion. She’d keep going for that, though it meant she’d have to hike back up all these switchbacks. They were three hours into the hike when they hit bottom, and he still didn’t know. She sat on the largest, highest rock she could find and took off her shoe. She flung the tiny pebble at him. ‘You kicked this into my boot,’ she accused. It had landed in his hair and now found its way into his shirt and after that she didn’t know; it was his to deal with now.