GAP Mile 80.4, Union Hill, Pennsylvania
The sun slanted through the dusty window and carved a line across the woman’s weathered face. Rory snapped a photo timed to capture both the sunbeam highlighting the dust motes in the air and the contrast of the shadow falling across the woman's left cheek and the peeling wallpaper behind her. She circled the woman on quick, silent feet as she pressed the shutter release button on her Nikon D850, set to quiet continuous release to be as unobtrusive as possible.
Lowering the viewfinder, she asked a question to put her subject at ease. “What year did your parents build this house?”
“Oh, heavens, my parents didn’t build it. My grandparents did.” Lydia Hudson smoothed the skirt of her dress, the blue material shiny with age.
Rory had told her to dress comfortably, but she was unsurprised when Lydia opened the door wearing her church dress and glossy red lipstick. People couldn’t help themselves—it was one of many reasons she preferred spontaneous shoots. Her best work always seemed to come from approaching a stranger at a bus stop and asking permission to snap a photo or stumbling onto an eye-catching natural composition.
But the circumstances dictated she make an appointment for this shoot. She reminded herself what was at stake and re-engaged the woman.
“Really? Do you know when that was?” She raised the camera again and waited.
She started snapping again when Lydia screwed up her face and tried to recall.
After a beat, Lydia spoke softly, her voice echoing off the bare walls. The home had already been emptied of furniture, clothing, belongings. Only memories remained now.
“Must have been, oh, a little over a hundred years ago. They lived here for fifty-some years. When they passed, both of them, one after the other in ’72, my mom and dad moved us in here. My brothers got married and moved away, but I stayed to help them out. After I met Ed, rest his soul, we rented a place across the road—that yarn shop and the pottery studio used to be duplex apartments.” She gestured out the window at the pair of upscale boutiques across the street.
Rory followed the motion and aimed her viewfinder toward the shops. She fired off a handful of quick shots through the streaked windows to capture the contrast between the past and present of Railroad Way.
She turned her attention back to Lydia. “You lived right across the street?”
A ghost of a smile crossed her red lips as she nodded. “I wanted to stay close. Then, after my parents passed, we moved over here with the kids. I guess I always thought one of them would take the place over when I was gone. Never imagined I’d outlive it.”
Lydia’s lower lip trembled. Rory pressed the shutter button before the woman could steel her expression.
The Hudsons’ home was destined to be demolished in just a few hours. After Lydia repeatedly refused to sell to a developer, the town instituted eminent domain proceedings on the grounds that Lydia was the lone holdout standing in the way of economic development. Rory had heard the gossip just that morning, a murmured conversation she’d overheard in the coffee shop while waiting for her latte and muffin. She asked around until she found someone who knew Lydia’s phone number, then called and introduced herself.
She’d expected to have to convince Lydia to let her intrude on such a private moment, but Lydia agreed without hesitation. So Rory had canceled her breakfast order, grabbed her camera equipment, and rode her bike down the trail to document Lydia’s farewell to her home and its demolition.
The subject matter was a perfect fit for Push/Pull, Rory’s upcoming exhibition. If she was lucky, she’d have time to add some of today’s photos to the exhibit. Even if not, the day wouldn’t be wasted. She wanted the installation to be a living record and planned to expand it online and possibly in her studio after the gallery exhibit was over.
“Are you going to stay and watch?” she asked quietly, not sure what Lydia would say.
She considered what she would do in Lydia’s shoes—would she bear witness to the destruction of her family home or would she leave before the demolition team arrived in hopes of keeping her memories intact?
Lydia squared her jaw and straightened her shoulders. She nodded.
“Are any of your kids coming up to be with you?”
She sniffed. “No, they think I’m a foolish old woman. They think I should just have taken the money and moved to a retirement community someplace warm and sunny.” Her voice held no bitterness but was tinged with sadness.
“I’ll stay, but I won’t photograph it.” Rory offered on an impulse. It suddenly felt too invasive, too ghoulish, to record the demolition with Lydia watching.
Lydia’s eyes snapped
up to meet hers. Her gaze was no longer sad nor tired—it was fierce.
“Oh yes, you will. I’m not going to pretend this didn’t happen. You take all the photographs you want, young lady—of me and the house.” Her voice shook again, but Rory could tell it was rage, not sorrow, causing this quaver.
She nodded. “Understood.”
She waited on the bowed front porch while Lydia took one final, private walk through her home. She’d silenced her phone before the session, so now she turned off the do not disturb feature. Before she could return the device to her pocket, it vibrated as it began to deliver a backlog of text and voicemail messages. She glanced down at the screen. She had two missed calls from the Hot Metal Art Gallery, one voicemail message from the gallery’s line, and several texts from its owner. She silenced the phone again and slipped it back into her pocket. She’d deal with Tripp later.
GAP Mile 148.8, Downtown Pittsburgh
Bodhi King stood and slung his backpack over his shoulder. Then he leaned in through the open door and across the minivan’s passenger compartment to pat his friend on the arm. “Thanks for the lift, Saul.”
“You got it, buddy. Still don’t understand why you can’t take normal vacations.”
Bodhi smiled.
“I’m serious,” Saul persisted. “Whose idea of relaxation involves walking 150 miles?”
“Mine,” Bodhi told him.
Saul shook his head. “I’m glad you decided against camping on the trail, at least. That could’ve been dangerous.”
Bodhi gave him a bemused look. “Dangerous? I doubt it. Possibly uncomfortable—to some.”
“Right. Who needs comfort?” Saul cracked.
Bodhi would have been happy to rough it, to hang his camping hammock between two trees and be rocked to sleep by the early spring breeze. Instead, he’d decided to stop for meals and shelter in some of the trail towns lining the Great Allegheny Passage. After recent trips to two small towns—one in the mountains of Vermont, one on the Emerald Coast of Florida—he’d become attuned to the unique challenges facing overlooked rural communities and wanted to offer some small measure of support and solidarity as he traveled.
Now, Saul went on. “But I’m serious. It’s not safe to sleep on the trail.”
Bodhi cocked his head. “What are we talking about here—a twisted ankle? Poison oak? A bear?”
Saul frowned, shaking his head. “I’m just saying … some portions of the trail may have been taken over.”
“Taken over by what?”
“Not what. Whom.” Saul’s voice dropped. “The city’s made a concerted effort to empty the encampment at the trailhead. Apparently, all they accomplished was relocating the homeless further along the trail.”
“Not having a home doesn’t make a person a threat.” He paused. “In fact, if anyone’s endangered, it’s probably the unhoused people living on the trail.”
“How do you figure?”
“They’re more isolated and less visible than they were before. And they’re further away from accessible social services, shelter, and medical care so they’ll be vulnerable to hunger, illness, and the elements.”
Saul drew his brows together and screwed up his face in thought. “I never looked at it that way. Still, promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I always take care, Saul.”
“You have a first-aid kit?”
“Of course.”
“Do you carry Narcan in it?”
Bodhi blinked. “Well … no.”
He’d prepared his first-aid kit in response to any dangers he expected to encounter: bee stings, splinters, wounds, fevers. It hadn’t occurred to him that he could come across someone overdosing on opioids.
Saul popped his glove compartment open and gestured inside. “Take a couple.”
Bodhi studied the boxes of naloxone nasal spray. “Why do you have these?”
Saul laughed bleakly. “It’s a massive problem. The morgues are full of folks who overdosed—especially on fentanyl. These sprays are an easy way to prevent deaths.”
Forensic pathologists, unlike most professionals, hated nothing more than a boom in business.
“Sure, but that doesn’t explain why you have these. Your patients are beyond saving.”
“I think everyone should carry naloxone.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone. You know they have it on college campuses now? They train the students how to administer it.”
Bodhi paused, considering this. “No, I didn’t realize.”
“Shopkeepers on the West Coast keep it behind the counter in case someone collapses on the street in front of their business or in their bathroom. As far as I’m concerned it’s basic safety preparedness—like having a defibrillator or a fire extinguisher.”
He had a point, Bodhi thought.
“I will take some, thank you.” He removed a handful of the spray vials from the compartment, slipped them into the kit in his backpack, and closed the minivan door.
He crossed the parking lot, noting the large boulders—hostile architecture—at the trailhead where the encampment had once stood. He took a deep breath and exhaled before his hiking boots landed on the path with a gentle, almost reverent, motion. Then Bodhi King took his first step on the one-hundred-and-fifty-mile trek from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland.
Six miles outside of Pittsburgh, he encountered what Saul had warned of. Three makeshift shelters nestled in a copse of trees just off the trail. The occupants eyed him warily at first, but his calm demeanor and open hands eventually earned him tentative smiles. ...
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