North of Hope by Shannon Polson Page A

mosquitoes forced me just as quickly back into my rain gear and a mosquito head net. Resting the shotgun against a piece of driftwood, I sat with the journal, a book of Mary Oliver poetry, and the oversized can of bear spray and let the landscape saturate my eyes and soul.
    This was our first night on the river. One year ago exactly, it had been Dad and Kathy’s last night on earth. The pain of the past year returned like the twisting of a blade.
    One night at home in my Seattle apartment, only weeks after returning from Alaska, I sat on the overstuffed denim couch,tucked under a quilt, reading. I looked up from my book—my concentration was so poor!—and my eye caught the leather briefcase of Dad’s I had placed under the coffee table. I put my book down carefully. I slid down to sit on the floor and pulled the briefcase toward me. The thick brown leather bore scratches and dents from decades of use, the brass latch marred from years of protecting and releasing its contents. Inside were the newspaper articles from the summer, the funeral service bulletins, sympathy cards, death certificates. I looked over the articles, which still didn’t register to me as real. Then the crisp blue-and-white death certificate, with the raised imprint of the coroner. “Cause of death: 1. Massive blunt force injuries, 2. Bear mauling.” Did the coroner write this same thing after every bear attack? Or had he really done an examination?
    In the back of the briefcase was a manila envelope, taped shut. I replaced the articles, the bulletin, the certificate. I pulled out the envelope.
    One corner of the envelope was creased into a fold. I smoothed it back with my thumb, as though I could flatten it, make it right. Then, with some masochistic sense of resolve, I slid my finger under the flap of the envelope and tore it open. The unedited police report slid out, a neat stapled packet. I read through each page, slowly. My stomach tightened. Bile rose in my throat. The mirage that is our days and hours evaporated, hurling me back to the phone call, to a gruesome event I’d only imagined and now understood through the detailed report of its aftermath. The report described me as having blond hair and green eyes, and said I was several years older than I was and living in Oregon. I was momentarily angered by this misidentification and then amused, as though my neurons no longer knew how to react. And then, reading further, I was offended: Dad and Kathy were bodies. The body of a man. The body of a woman.
    I read the report like an addict who had abstained too long and now pushed the needle into her vein.
    I should have recognized the signal, should have understood what it meant: I was whirling in the winds of the vortex still, believing in the power of information. Still believing that I could change the outcome.
    I clutched at the couch with one hand. With the other I dug my fingers into my rib cage as though to keep my body from spinning apart. I rolled onto my side. The harsh light of the reading lamp’s bare bulb shone into my pupils, but all I could see was darkness, dimensionless, interminable, and terrifying. I lay curled and helpless, focusing on how to take each breath, my arms clutching my sides with tightly curled fingers as though only the tension in my body could hold my life in one piece. Any doubts I may have had about the effect that violence in our souls has on our bodies evaporated in the pain of clarity.
    I blinked to force my senses to readjust to the scene, the soft gurgle of the current against the shore, the light soft on the mountains. I was on the river where they’d made their final journey. It was my last attempt at understanding. I whispered aloud, to God, to the bears, to Dad. “Come on, bears, give us a break out here, won’t you?” I was scared, in part because of the bears, but also because the nightmare that everyone has who loses a loved one was coming true: I had a hard time remembering Dad, the specifics of