Take Me with You

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

They were more than pretty, August thought. They were majestic. They made you miss one breath, no matter how many times you’d seen them. He didn’t speak.

“I didn’t mean now. I’m not stupid, August. I know that’s too hard to do now. I mean I want to learn to do that. When I get older. When I’m big enough that it’s up to me what I do and nobody can stop me.”

“Maybe. Just, when I saw it . . . I sort of felt like maybe now everything is going to be okay.”

“I’ve been trying to think of words to tell you how all this makes me feel.” “The Tetons?” “Yeah, but not just them. All of this. All this . . . you know. These places. Nature. It makes me feel different. But I just can’t figure out what words to use.” “Most people say it makes them feel smaller. Like the world is so big, it makes them feel insignificant.” “No,” Seth said. But then he didn’t immediately elaborate. “Bigger,” he said after a time. “Really?”

“Just on the inside, though,” Seth said. “Like in my chest. Like I breathe air into my chest, and there’s more space in my lungs than before. But not my lungs really. I just feel like there’s more room inside me than there used to be.” August briefly tried that on for size. Wondered if he longed for summer because summer made it so much easier to breathe. “Is that how it feels to you, August?” “I’m not sure,” August said. “But I guess that’s as good a way to describe the feeling as any.”

“Henry!” Seth screamed. “You have to get in here! August’s sad! We have to help him!”

Everybody should pay better attention in science class, August thought. He was so tired of teaching something that nobody seemed to care much about.

They looked up at him with eager faces. August wondered if his job would be different if kids looked up at him with eager faces.

Maybe the school was the problem, August thought. Maybe everybody wants a science lesson if they’re sitting in the middle of one of the greatest geothermal wonders of the world. Maybe we’ve removed all the relevance from the information we teach kids so they have no idea why they should care. Maybe it’s not the kids’ fault. Maybe we made the first mistake.

Then he went on to explain the terraces and mudpots and paintpots, half aware that the people on either side of him had gone silent and were leaning in a bit to listen. Right before he wrapped up the lesson, he felt a faint memory of what he had once liked about science. And, in the faces of the boys, what he had liked about teaching kids.

“He liked it because you liked it,” Seth said. It didn’t sound like a question. “Maybe. Or maybe it runs in the family.” Henry glanced up at August, almost as though he had an opinion. If so, he never shared it. “No, I think you’re right. I think he liked it because he looked up to me. And because it was something we could be interested in together. Something we could share.”

“Not always it doesn’t. Everybody goes around missing all the best stuff because they don’t want anything bad to happen. But then when something bad wants to happen it just does. Anyway. No matter how careful you’re being.”

But like you know what’s going to happen next, and it makes sense. And even when it doesn’t work like that, I can just say so to him . . . and then we talk about it and then things make sense again. I talk to my dad all the time but nothing ever changes. It’s like everything I say just sort of bounces off him. But when August and I talk, stuff actually gets worked out. And it’s such a relief.”

But I’ve seen a lot of people walk a lot of roads. Some not so happy. And it makes them what they are. So if you run around putting a pillow under people to cushion their fall . . . well, I’m just not sure it’s quite the favor we think it is.”

I really think a person’s kids should be the most important thing to them. But if you’ve got stuff you want to do and you just walk away and do it and never see them again, then they’re not. I mean, we’re not. We weren’t important enough to her.”

well, that’s more or less the textbook definition of an alcoholic. Someone who knows it’s time to cut down but can’t.

“The thing you have to remember, August, is that Seth has climbed lots of big walls like that one. This is not some big special first time for him. This is just the first time you knew he was doing it while he was doing it.”

he smiled in a way that looked genuinely happy. In fact, he looked more genuinely happy than August could ever remember seeing. Or being.

Everybody is a good person and a bad person at the same time. The only real variation is in the balance. How much good to how much bad. When a person has a bigger good side, we call him a good person. But it’s never absolute.”

“You guys just mean so damn much to me,” he said.

“It was from August.” A brief silence. Henry broke it. “That’s why things went as well as they did after you dropped us off. You know that, right?” “I don’t think a fifty-dollar bill can do all that.” “Not the money, August. You. You’re the reason things were pretty okay after that. I know you think we just went on with our lives, and I’m sorry we didn’t know you really wanted us to keep in touch. Now I wish we had. But still. It changed everything. It changed us. Whether we talked

to you or not. Before we met you, we were always scared that our dad was just about to let us down. But after that summer, we knew if he dropped us you’d be there to catch us. You have no idea how much of a difference it made.”