The Jewel of the Isle

One

Emily

Jason dumps me while I'm wearing a bucket hat.

When I look back on this someday, I think that's the detail that will haunt me the most. Not that he broke up with me halfway through our weekly out-and-back hike, meaning we had to spend three very awkward miles together on the way back to the trailhead. And not that he dumped me for a professional dog walker named Piper who somehow wears overalls and a fanny pack without looking like a harried mom at Disney World. I won't even be most disturbed by the fact that he broke up with me three weeks before we were scheduled to take a very important, very nonrefundable trip to the most remote national park in the lower forty-eight.

It'll always be the bucket hat.

It should be one of the basic rules of being a decent person. Like don't wear white to someone else's wedding and don't date somebody who's rude to the waiter, don't dump your girlfriend while she's wearing a hat with an adjustable chin cord seems like basic manners.

I knew the hat was a bad idea. When I studied my reflection in the REI changing room, it practically sparkled under the harsh fluorescent lighting. It had a sun-protective neck nape and a reinforced brim that could best be described as nauseating, with tiny blue fish stitched onto the yellow canvas. It was horrifying, and I looked horrifying in it.

"I can't tell if I look more like a large toddler or a grandma on vacation," I told my sister Brooke, who squinted at me as she, too, tried to figure it out.

"Both, I think," she said finally. "I can't decide. But buy it anyway. You don't want skin cancer."

So I bought it. But now, as I'm sweating my butt off in the ninety-degree heat and listening to Jason explain that it's him, not me, but it's also kind of me, I regret my choice. It's like the time I went on a midnight ice-cream run wearing a tunic and sweatpants tucked into snow boots only to run into my handsome ex and his new girlfriend. They spotted me carrying four cartons of cookies 'n cream to the checkout, two tucked under each arm, and today is still worse. Because at least then I had dessert.

Today started out like every other Saturday for the past six weeks: I woke up, second-guessed my life choices while I hastily ate a protein bar, and drove with Jason to Hocking Hills State Park, where we strapped on our backpacking gear and hit the trail. By hit the trail I mean that he pranced over tree roots and muddy puddles with the grace of a nimble deer, and I tried my best not to slip on a wet leaf and break my leg.

Before we reached the first mile marker, however, I knew something was up. Jason, who rowed crew in college and gives off Tony Perkis from Heavyweights vibes when engaging in athletic endeavors, usually doesn't mind that I hike at the pace of a decrepit turtle. It's not that I'm lazy-my sixth-grade PE teacher wrote, Emily tries hard, so that's something! in the comments section of my report card-so much as wildly unathletic, and Jason usually peppers me with encouragement that borders on grating. But today, he didn't remind me that The longest journey begins with a single step! when I tripped on a rock and landed on my ass. Nor did he cheerfully inform me that Nothing is impossible; the word itself says I'm possible! when I mistook an Eastern milk snake for a rattlesnake and watched my life flash before my eyes. He just hiked silently, not even whistling as we started the steep ascent toward the turnaround point.

If I had oxygen to spare, I would have asked him what was up. But because cardiovascular exercise robs me of my breath and my general will to live, I focused on pushing through the burning ache in my muscles. Turns out I didn't have to ask anyway.

"Emily," Jason says once we reach the trickling waterfall that marks the turnaround point. "I need to tell you something."

I freeze. Hardly anyone calls me Emily; it's always Em or Emmy or Dr. Edwards. Even Jason's mother, who once snidely described my taste in living room decor as Cracker Barrel gift shop, minus the subtlety doesn't call me Emily. That's because she calls me Emma, but still.

"Um, okay," I say, wondering if he's about to announce that Taylor Swift died or something. The last time he went this many hours into the day without humming "Eye of the Tiger," he was about to tell me that Bed Bath & Beyond was closing forever. And Bed Bath & Beyond was my happy place. "Shoot."

He takes a deep breath, as if steeling himself to drop a bomb. "I can't go to Isle Royale with you. Because, well, because I want to break up."

I would have been less surprised if he told me he drank deer blood and sparkled in the sunlight. "Huh?"

"I know how important the Isle Royale trip is to you, and I can't go," he says, nudging a rock with the toe of his hiking boot. "It wouldn't be right."

I blink at him as my brain tries to assemble the sounds coming out of his mouth into something that makes sense. Isle Royale National Park, a jagged stretch of island in Lake Superior so remote that it can only be reached by ferry or seaplane, is my emotional and physical Everest. It's also the site of the super important backpacking trip Jason and I are scheduled to take in T minus twenty days and counting. The super important trip that he's bailing on, apparently.

"Em?" he asks, waving a hand in front of my face. "Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

His voice sounds muffled and tinny, and I wonder if the suffocating early September humidity is making me hallucinate. Surely my boyfriend of two years isn't dumping me right before the one week I'll desperately need his love, support, and ability to carry a shit ton of camping gear on his back.

"Water, please," I croak, rubbing my throat and pointing to the canteen fastened to Jason's day pack.

He passes it to me hurriedly, watching with wide eyes as I lift the canteen to my lips and gulp like my life depends on it.

"I, um, I know this is probably difficult for you to hear," he says, his eyes going even wider as some of the water goes down the wrong pipe and I break into a coughing fit. "But I think it's best for everyone."

I sputter again, so loudly that I startle a family of robins from a nearby oak tree. It's definitely not best for everyone for me to attempt a solo backpacking expedition in a national park that lacks potable water and cell service but has plenty of wolves and moose. It's certainly not the best thing for me. The closest I've ever come to camping is watching Troop Beverly Hills on repeat as a kid, and I single-handedly ruined Wilderness Day for my entire fourth grade Girl Scout troop in a hapless attempt to make daisy chain necklaces. (Note to self: if you can't find any daisies in the forest and sub in a leafy green plant instead, make sure that plant isn't poison ivy.) Unlike Jason, I am not built for surviving a week in the great outdoors. I'm built for appreciating a good pair of cashmere socks and reading Nora Roberts books by the fireplace.

"The thing is, you haven't been yourself this last year," Jason continues, studying me with mild alarm as I frantically dig through my day pack for a granola bar. "You've been really distracted, which is understandable. Considering, you know, what happened."

My fingers locate the bag of peanut M&M's that are supposed to be my post-hike treat, and I tear it open so roughly that half the candies fly out. What happened is that on a chilly October afternoon eleven months ago, my dad died. One second Jason and I were eating Chinese takeout on the couch, and the next I was answering a frantic call from the tearful bookstore owner who watched Dad collapse in the checkout line. Roger Edwards Jr., a bearded, bear-hugging guy who still listened to baseball on the radio and never watched a World War II movie that didn't make him misty-eyed, had suffered a sudden massive heart attack. He died next to a cardboard cutout of Clifford the Big Red Dog, the Jesse Owens biography he wanted to buy on the ground beside him.

Of course I haven't been myself since; losing your best friend will do that to you.

"Is this because I left your mom's party early?" I ask, crinkling the candy bag with my fingers. "Because I stayed as long as I could."

Last week, I'd left Judith's sixtieth birthday brunch long before she even opened my present, a rose gold pendant necklace with her and Jason's initials that took me three painstaking attempts to wrap. But after she gave me a pointed eyebrow raise for ordering a second mimosa and sharply corrected me for using the fancy forks out of order, I cried in the bathroom and peaced out. It wasn't her criticism that reduced me to tears, even though it hurt. I cried because of how hard it was to watch Judith, who called Jason's assistant the help and tried to sit me at the kids' table at Thanksgiving, ring in another year of berating waitstaff and terrorizing managers while my dad was gone.

It's not that I wanted anything bad to happen to Judith, even if I had spent two years trying to (not literally) kill her with kindness. I just missed Dad so much that it ached, and running off to the bathroom to listen to one of the Hey Emmy, just your old dad here voicemails saved on my phone hadn't helped the situation. So I left before I could ruin the fancy vibes of Judith's party with my fun little mental breakdown.

"Not at all," Jason says. "I know how hard you've tried with my mom. It's just . . . we barely connect anymore. You're always at work or on your phone. And when you do get a day off, you seem way more interested in going to HomeGoods than spending time together."

I take another sip of water, mostly to ward off the tears swelling in the corners of my eyes. As much as I want to protest, he isn't wrong. After Dad's funeral, in addition to the grief, I felt a restlessness that made it impossible to relax. Working double shifts in the ER kept my mind and hands busy, and with every chest compression I performed or chest tube I placed, I felt like I was helping some other family avoid the fate that befell mine. And in an attempt to make my inner world cozy and soft when the outside world was anything but, I spent entirely too much money on handwoven accent rugs and cute ceramic planters shaped like pineapples. When Brooke came over for dinner last week, she took one look around my apartment and warned me that if I hung one more piece of wall art with a cutesy phrase like moody for foody or more espresso, less depresso in my alcove kitchen, she'd stage an intervention.

"HomeGoods had a lot of steep markdowns last month," I tell Jason quietly. "I got those watermelon hand towels half off."

He lets out a long exhale. "I know this year has been rough on you, so I've tried to be patient. But at some point, you have to start moving on, you know? You can't keep living in the past."

I chew my bottom lip, letting his words sink in. I don't think Jason, a thirty-eight-year-old man who screamed at the ref when his adult kickball team lost the league championship, has any right to accuse me of living in the past.

"I am moving on," I insist. "That's what the Isle Royale trip is all about. I'm going on my dad's behalf so that I can say goodbye properly. The way he would have wanted."

I pause and shove a handful of M&M's into my mouth, hoping a blood sugar boost will get rid of the woozy, lightheaded feeling that just washed over me. "Besides, we'll be in the literal woods for six days with no work or phones to distract us. That's basically a couples retreat!"

He blinks. "With all due respect, I don't think spreading ashes is part of your standard couples retreat."

I take a deep breath, trying to calm the pounding in my chest. If Jason backs out of the trip, I'll be forced to go into the wilderness alone. And considering that I don't know the first thing about filtering drinking water or starting a campfire, my chances of being mauled by a wolf or accidentally swallowing a brain-eating amoeba are greater than zero.

"I can't go alone," I say, practically shouting to hear myself over the hum of buzzing cicadas. "We've been together for two years. Shouldn't that count for something?"

He sighs and passes me a second canteen from his hydration belt. "There isn't a linear relationship between time and love, Em. I think you and I both know that. Besides, do you hear yourself? You said you can't go alone, not that you can't go without me. There's a big difference, and it's time we stop pretending otherwise."

I press the canteen to my forehead to cool my burning skin. Jason's words are harsh, but maybe he's not saying anything I don't already know deep down. Since we met at the complimentary breakfast our hospital hosted for National Doctors' Day, our fingertips brushing as we reached for the same basket of stale blueberry muffins, our relationship was driven more by convenience than chemistry. By the time I realized it, though, I was planning Dad's funeral, and it was easier to keep laughing at Jason's mediocre jokes and dragging myself to monthly dinners with his family than create another disruption in my already blown-up life.

So I nod, even though I wish I could argue. "Maybe you're right."

He wipes sweat off his brow and breathes a sigh of relief. "I'm so glad you agree. And look, I know my timing sucks, but you can just push your trip back until spring, right? So Brooke can go with you."

I pull the canteen away from my forehead. He might as well have said, You can dye your hair green and become an Oompa Loompa, right?

"No," I say. "No, absolutely not."