“It’s 4:04!  Make a wish!”  Ula interrupts our conversation as we walk the dogs through the state land to announce the alignment of hour and minutes.  These are auspicious moments, she has assured me, and unlike shooting stars or birthdays, they happen once every hour.  The day is rife with opportunities for wishes.  I’ve used my extra wishes for world peace, to influence mid-term elections, to speed Bob’s and the girls’ recoveries from colds and flu.  Today I apply my wish toward Thanksgiving, investing in a selfish wish:  for time alone.  

I saw my opportunity when my brother Sean and his wife Lyndsey announced they’d be having a baby around Thanksgiving. Mom and Dad would likely head out to Cape Cod to celebrate with them.  I couldn’t help but wonder if chocolate and seafood alone with Bob might be on the menu for me, paired with side dishes of quiet fireside knitting, drawn-out naps, a few movies and maybe even a double-helping of solitude for dessert.  

But nobody thinks you should be alone for Thanksgiving.  As soon as word got out that the traditional Sap Bush Thanksgiving would not be happening this year, our branch of the family was neck-deep in invitations. Unable to bring myself to respond to any of them, at Ula’s proclamation of 4:04, I close my eyes and wish for that chocolate and seafood holiday.  Maybe fairy dust will sprinkle lobster, truffles and good excuses from the sky.

When I open my eyes, there is no fairy dust.  But there is a car blocking our dirt road exit from the forest.  Two men get out wearing suits and ties.  Dusky runs up for pets.   Kit lunges from her leash to greet them.  She does a submission pee on one guy’s foot.  They introduce themselves as investigators, and one of them presents me with a card with Major Crimes Unit inked in raised font below his name.  

While Ula stays silent, they start asking me questions.  They want to know about my walking habits.  They ask me to tell them the names of all the neighbors I know on my road.  As I list them off, they stop at one name:  Christina Bach Arvidson.  They want every detail of my relationship with her, offering me only one piece of information:  there’s been an incident. 

Christina and I are just waving neighbors.  I have no claim on friendship, but we’ve never had any unfriendly exchanges, either.  She stopped by the house to tell me when she started her photography business; Bob’s taken her and her kids home when her car was lodged in a snowbank; she’s rolled down her window to tell me if she liked a particular blog post; I’ve helped her find her goats when they get out; and we’ve always waved.  No dinners.  No drinks.  No playdates with the kids.  No rambling chats through open car windows.  The investigators want to know about our last conversation (she introduced me to her new puppy); they want to know the last time she waved at me.  They want to know if there are any surveillance cameras on my house.  When our interview concludes, they shake my hand, give Dusky and Kit a pet and wish us a pleasant evening.  

We walk back to the house as the sun sets.  Bob and Saoirse leave for play practice, and Ula and I fix ourselves some supper, chatting and laughing all the while.  “It’s 6:06!  Make a wish!” She suddenly calls out.  

And then it hits me.  “Ula?   Christina must be in trouble.  Can you help me make a wish for her?”    We grip hands, close our eyes and put our foreheads together.  I picture Christina in my mind, always smiling.  I send her my wish.

But by then, she is already dead, shot in the head in her house, a victim of what police are calling a murder-suicide by a 24-year-old-man.  By then, some of my other neighbors had already had the gut-wrenching trauma of finding them.  We don’t find out until the next afternoon.

Technically, our lives are not effected in any way.  But Bob and I are certain the sun has stopped shining on our road.   November’s darkness, normally so welcome for us both, weighs heavily.  We try wandering the woods by our normal habit, and we find her lost puppy.  We try to groove on the tree shadows and the glorious patterns of the skim ice.  We try to focus on the daily details of our business.  We try to talk about play practice.  We try to talk about travel dreams.  It all falls flat, and we keep talking about her and the three young children left behind — About her dogs and goats;  about her grieving family, none of whom we know.  I start cursing myself — for not paying closer attention, for not knowing more, for not being aware that she was in trouble. We talk about our neighbors who found the bodies; wondering what visions are haunting their dreams and the footsteps between their house and Christina’s.  We spend a lot of time simply not talking. 

We hear of shootings all the time.  But somehow, at 2000 feet  in elevation, nestled up against 2000 acres of wilderness,  far away from cities and villages, aside from the hunters and target practice, we thought we were out of reach of all this.  And suddenly, our beloved stomping grounds are besieged with gloom.  And I wonder if the joy and bliss that daily touch my heart, reaching out from the forests, streams and ponds, will ever ripple up from these lands again. 

I focus on my work:  Bookkeeping. Making pies for the cafe.  Scheduling turkey pick-ups.  Social media.  Math lessons.  Homeschool discussions about the reign of Queen Elizabeth.  In the pre-dawn hours, I sit at my computer, typing research notes for my new book, not looking outside to the land that so often fuels my creative fire.  But a few mornings after her death, a little sunlight peaks through, offering a glimpse of sunrise in a black week.  I turn my back on it and return to my comptuer.  The rising sun burns brighter and brighter, then changes the sky to all shades of pink, yellow, orange and blue,  reflecting into my computer monitor, admonishing me for turning my back on it.  

Finally, I push away from my keyboard and turn my eyes to the mountains and sky.  And then it hits me:  I am the only stranger to this pain and discomfort.  This land has seen violence and tragedy and death since humans have walked it.  Throughout this town and county there are sites of murders and suicides over the decades and centuries.  The picturesqe cemeteries hidden deep in the woods tell stories of young mothers lost in childbirth; of children lost; of families destroyed by the starvation of early spring.  The streams still flow, the seasons still change, the snow still falls.  And the longer I commit my soul to repeatedly walk the same forests and fields and community, the more stories I will know of tragedy.  I cannot hide from them.  They form the texture of a place.  Christina’s story is already weaving itself into this land— her photographs capture people’s portraits as they smile beneath the conifers, walk along the dirt roads, embrace along a field’s edge.  Her smiles and waves are seared in my mind, calling her to memory each place I greeted her as I trod this ground. 

These thoughts bring me comfort as I walk to the wood pile or nod and wave at my other neighbors as they drive by.  They remind me as Bob and I sit beside a snowy stream drinking coffee in the morning that sunlight will once again find the forest floor.  But that doesn’t stop me from staring at her facebook page, scanning the internet for people’s memories of her, posting condolence messages on her tribute wall for her family, sending money for the children, or just sitting alone and crying for her, for her dreams, for her children, for her family members.  And I keep thinking about her survivors’ Thanksgiving; about how very sad and lonely it is going to feel.  And not just this Thanksgiving.  They will feel it over and over again. 

And I remember my own wish at 4:04 last Tuesday afternoon.  For solitude.  And while solitude has a prominent place in my creative life; suddenly, for Thanksgiving, it all just seems so ….un-thankful.  I’m getting a brand new niece this Thanksgiving.  My mother and father are alive and well.  I have brothers and sisters to celebrate with. My aunt and uncles and cousins are here.  My children are happy and healthy.  My husband cherishes me.  My neighbors are good people.  My friends are amazing.  

Bob, the girls and I sit around at lunch and make a critical decision.  Rather than avoid our invitations or choose among them, we will accept every Thanksgiving invitation we’ve received, traveling around to each home, reminding ourselves how many wonderful people we get to share this journey with.  We need this day.  We need the people.  And we are grateful for them.

“It’s 2:02!  Make a wish!”  Ula calls out while I’m rolling pie dough.  I put down my pin and look outside.   “I wish for peace for Christina’s family,” I say aloud.  

“Me too,” she says.  

Thank you, Christina, for your time here.  You are forever part of Rossman Valley Rd. 

A fund has been established for Christina’s three young children.  Checks can be sent to the Arvidson Children’s Fund, c/o Sawyer Savings Bank, 87 Market St., Saugerties, N.Y., 12477. Expressions of condolence may be shared on Christina’s Tribute Wall at SeamonWilseyFuneralHome.com