Easter Morning: A White Mountains Story
Margaret drove down into the dark before anyone else was awake.
She did this sometimes since Gerald died. Got up at four, made coffee without turning on the lights, drove somewhere without a destination. The truck knew the roads. She just pointed it south and let the headlights work.
Highway 260 was empty. Wagon Wheel first, then Lakeside, then Pinetop. Towns bleeding into each other in the half-light. She turned off at the Woodland Lake Park (Visit Pinetop-Lakeside, AZ) entrance and followed the road down to the lot, gravel popping under the tires.
She turned off the engine and listened.
Pines moved in the wind. The lake caught the moonlight, flat and pale, the cold coming off it even from where she stood. Something small scrambled in the brush near the water’s edge and went still. Far off, a raven called once and stopped.
She’d lived in The City of Show Low three years. Followed Gerald here when he retired, before his heart gave out the following spring. He’d never liked how quiet it got up here at night. Said it kept him awake. She’d thought that was funny at the time.
Gerald had died on a Tuesday in May. Nothing special about it. No holidays, no ceremony. Just a Tuesday, and then her whole life different.
Her sister had called twice that week. Said she had a spare room. Said there was no reason to stay. Margaret had told her she'd think about it.
The sky was going gray by six.
She walked the loop as the light settled over the lake. The air smelled like pine needles and cold water. Painted rocks lined the path, each one left by someone. Names, dates, a few words. She didn’t stop to read them.
A family came around the bend toward her. Husband and wife, three kids, all of them in church clothes. The father nodded.
“Morning.”
“Morning,” Margaret said as they passed.
She watched them go, the kids cutting through the dandelions to chase goslings toward the muddy water’s edge.
By seven the loop had come to life.
Walkers in fleece jackets. Dogs on leashes. A man in running shoes who lapped her twice without looking up.
Then, near the covered bridge, a group of maybe twenty people set up folding chairs facing the water, a portable speaker beside them. Nobody dressed up. Just neighbors. A man in a flannel shirt opened a Bible and began to speak.
Margaret stopped on the path and watched.
She couldn’t hear the words but she could see his breath in the cold air. The others leaned in.
Gerald had believed in things quietly. Never made it a conversation. She used to find that restful. Standing here now, watching strangers lean into something together, she wasn’t sure restful was the right word.
She found a bench on the back stretch, the quieter side where the tree shadows reached the water. She sat and watched the lake settle in the early light.
A man stood on some flat rocks at the water’s edge, maybe twenty feet off. A camera on a tripod, lens pointed across the lake toward the eagle’s nest. He didn’t move. Just waited.
Margaret sat with that for a while.
Then she got up and walked back the way she’d come.
Near the parking lot, a fire truck was backed in by the field, lights off, a handful of families gathered around it. Plastic eggs were scattered in the grass, bright against the frost. A man in a reflective jacket was talking to a group of kids who weren’t listening. Someone mentioned the bunny arriving at ten-thirty.
Margaret watched for a moment. Then she walked past toward her truck.
She looked out at the lake one more time. The pines threw gold and green across the water, the sun just high enough to reach it. The geese had moved to the far bank. The goslings were lined up behind their mother like they were following instructions. No kids chasing them now.
She stood there until her feet were cold.
Then she walked back and drove home slow. Windows cracked. Houses set back in the trees. She held her left hand out the window, the wind through her fingers.
On the street behind Bertie's White Mountain Cafe & Donuts, a family was walking to their car in church clothes. The little girl had grass stains on her white tights. Her father noticed, pointed, threw his hands up. The girl looked down at herself and grinned.
Margaret pulled into her driveway and sat for a minute.
She got out, went inside, and put the kettle on.
Gerald's reading glasses were still on the table by the window, the left arm wrapped in electrical tape where it had broken years ago. Where she'd left them. Where she kept leaving them.
She reached out and turned them once on the table, then sat down across from them and watched the kettle.
The phone buzzed once on the counter. Her sister’s name lit the screen.
She let it ring.
The kettle started to hum.
