After three rounds of deep breathing, Katie Hanford can hold her breath for almost two and a half minutes and feels as awake as if she had just had coffee. Her fingers tingle from the oxygen saturation in her cells. The technique is simple: Breathe deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth, producing a panting sound. Repeat thirty times, then hold your breath for as long as you can. Three repetitions per session. Some of her clients feel light-headed after such a prescription, and so she has started to dial down their breathing regimens. But on her own time, she is reaching junkie status. Her drug of choice: pure oxygen. And if she can get to a quiet place at least three times a day to breathe and center herself, so much the better.
This is an especially ecstatic day. The sun is bright, the sky blue, and the inevitable summer humidity hasn’t yet climbed to its height. She has just returned from a retreat near Asheville, and has had four blissful days of vegan food, yoga, and silent meditation. Closing her yoga studio for a light break in business had been so scary, but what a perfect idea it had been. With her sleek, white-blond hair in a neat ponytail, and her chiseled features fresh from a splash of cold water, she points her car toward Craven Lane to check in with Mason before work starts up again tomorrow. She bumps up the rutted road through the trees, and as she rounds the bend toward Mason’s trailer, she sees him, tall and muscular, standing by the fence with her old friend Leona McDonough. Well. Mason waves to her, and Katie waves cheerfully back. Leona looks down at her shoes. No matter. Nothing will kill Katie’s cleansing high. She emerges from the car, fresh and smiling.
“Hey y’all,” she calls.
“Hey Katie,” Leona says, sounding a little flattened. She is wearing baggy jeans, a baggy t-shirt, and sandals. Katie wonders why Leona doesn’t try harder. She really is a striking person, but she does seem to do her best to disguise it.
“How was Asheville?” Mason asks.
“Awesome, as usual,” Katie replies. “What in the hell are y’all doin’?” The two are standing at the fence with every single sheep and hog that Mason owns gathered around them.
“Benji sent me with all the old baked goods from Tsuga’s Coffee to give to Mason’s animals.” Leona says. She gestures to crumpled burlap bags on the ground, from which she and Mason are pulling days-old scones and muffins. The animals accept them with slobbering thanks.
“Oh, well that’s a good idea,” Katie says quickly.
No response. The humidity climbs palpably, while the movement from the animals produces a dungy scent and a cloud of light dust which emanates around them.
Mason fills the space. “I was just telling Leona,” he says. “This deer out on 810 yesterday morning popped out of the woods and ran alongside my truck close to a mile! Right next to me. Right by my window.”
“Oh, come on,” Katie says, grateful for the turn of conversation. One can always count on Mason to be approachable, cheerful, regardless of the situation.
“No shit,” says Mason. “It really jolted me, I’m telling you.”
“Well, that’s a sign, you know,” Katie shares. “What do deer symbolize? I’ll have to look it up.”
“Huh,” Mason says, and then spits in the tall summer grass, laying over itself.
He is so thick sometimes, Katie thinks.
“Well look, I don’t want to interrupt,” she says. “I just turned up the road to check in with you, make sure you’re up for a little run out to Missus Wayah’s tomorrow? I’m opening the studio early and I just can’t get out there in time. Besides, she kind of creeps me out.”
“Oh, please Katie, that lady is sweet as buttermilk pie. I can hit her up first thing tomorrow.” He squints at her. Friendly and authoritative as he is, Mason does have a way of making her feel silly.
She defends her stance. “There’s stories about her, you know,” Katie says. “What I don’t understand is: How she can just live in the National Forest? Like, how is that allowed?”
“Allowed…” Leona mumbles, still not making eye contact.
“Oh Leona, do you know her? I bet you do, the way you roam the woods.”
“Uh, no, not really… only met her once. By accident.”
“I see.” Katie feels her once best friend has become an obstinate stranger. Standing in the bright sun, Leona looks a bit like her mother. The thought gives Katie chills. Time to go.
“Well, I’m off. Thank you, Mason. See you around Leona. I hope!” she says, then turns on her heels.
Heading back down Craven Lane, she gulps the air. Why does seeing Leona feel more awkward now, in the aftermath, than it did in the height of the moment? Now, Katie’s father is healing, and she no longer feels the jolt of shock from his assault being committed by a long-time family friend. Now, Maya has been sentenced, and Katie has had a long heart-to-heart with her childhood best friend Leona…so why does it all feel so much heavier? And why is Leona visiting with Mason when she barely even shows her face at all anymore? Sure, Leona and Mason have always been friends. But so have Leona and Katie…the heat of the day begins to close in around her, and she feels tiny beads of sweat breaking out at her hairline.
Try as she might to move on, the bitter feeling of everyone having taken sides irks at her. And so, is that the way of life? One person’s justice (no matter how perverted) always equals suffering for someone else? Surely not. Her yoga, her meditation, and her practice are showing her that there can be peace in all things. Movement, positive movement. Isn’t that the way? Why the nagging and incessant energy that dwells in the pain? She rolls down the driver-side window to get more air and to create an escape route for tormenting thoughts, incessant flies of an endless season of heaviness. On top of it all, she regrets her gossip about the old woman, Wayah. Katie hadn’t been rude, had she?
“I am fucking made of positivity,” she says out loud. She rolls down all the windows, then, speeding down 810, lets the oxygen rush in.
∞