My Hiking Partner Said My Bad Knee Needed Easier Trails—Except There Was Nothing Wrong With My Knee

PART 10

On the final Saturday morning, the route board stood outside the lodge exactly where it had in October.

For one second I felt as if nothing had changed.

Then Benita handed me a red card and Joanne a blue one without looking at either of our knees.

“Ridge group leaves at eight,” she said. “Lake loop at eight fifteen.”

Joanne nodded.

I nodded.

We ate breakfast with the club.

At seven fifty, I filled my water bottles and checked my pack.

Joanne stood beside the fireplace, turning her blue route card over in her hands.

When I walked over, she said, “Can I ask something embarrassing?”

“Given our history, that is a broad category.”

“One lake loop. Today.”

I stared at her.

She rushed on.

“Not because of me needing cover. Not because I expect us to do everything together. Just—this is the first time back. I thought maybe we could end it the way we started.”

There was the old pull.

Not obligation exactly.

Nostalgia with excellent timing.

I could take the lake loop. I liked that trail. I could do the ridge tomorrow somewhere else. A friendship did not die from one shorter day.

All true.

Also true: I wanted the ridge.

I had spent months learning that choosing differently did not require a courtroom argument.

“Not today,” I said.

Joanne looked down.

“I figured.”

“I want the ridge.”

“I know.”

“I would do the lake with you another weekend.”

“That sounds like consolation.”

“It is a real offer.”

She met my eyes.

I said, “This is the part we have to practice.”

“What part?”

“Wanting different things while we are standing in the same parking lot.”

Joanne gave a small, unhappy laugh.

“That sounds less inspiring than your usual speeches.”

“I am retiring from speeches.”

“Thank God.”

Benita called the ridge group.

I adjusted my pack.

Joanne said, “Have a good hike.”

“You too.”

I walked away before either of us could improve the moment.

The ridge trail was harder than it had been in October.

Spring runoff had left sections muddy. Wind pressed along the open slope near the top. Priya was there, along with Benita and four people I knew only casually.

At the first steep climb, I settled into my own pace.

Not the fastest.

My pace.

When Benita called a break, I sat.

When I wanted water, I drank before anyone suggested it.

At one overlook, I took a picture and sent it to Joanne.

No caption.

The wind was sharp enough that I pulled my hat lower. Benita was checking the map with Marcus. Priya was sitting on a boulder eating trail mix one raisin at a time.

Nobody cared which route Joanne had chosen.

For months I had imagined our split as visible, almost public—a demotion from pair to separate people.

In reality, most people were busy with their own feet.

No caption.

Ten minutes later, she sent back a photograph of a turtle on a log.

I laughed out loud.

Priya looked over.

“Joanne?”

“Yes.”

“How is the knee?”

I stared at her.

Then I realized she was joking.

“You are an awful person.”

“I taught chemistry for thirty-eight years. It leaves marks.”

We kept climbing.

At the high point, the view opened across the valley. The lodge roof was a tiny dark rectangle beyond the trees.

We stayed there almost fifteen minutes because the wind kept pushing clouds across the sun and the valley changed color each time. I took off my pack. Priya sat on the ground. Marcus passed around chocolate-covered almonds.

I had once believed a hard hike proved itself by how continuously we moved.

Now the stopping felt like part of the day, not an interruption to it.

I felt strong.

I also felt tired.

The two facts no longer argued with each other.

On the descent, one hiker named Marcus decided to take the cutoff because his ankle felt sore.

Nobody called it failure.

I noticed that my attention had changed.

A year earlier, I would have been measuring who stayed with the full route.

Now I was looking at the woods.

When we reached the trailhead, my legs were heavy and my shoulders ached pleasantly under the pack straps.

The lake group had returned twenty minutes earlier.

Joanne was not waiting at the route board.

For an instant, disappointment hit.

Then I found her inside the lodge dining room eating soup with two women from her group.

She was laughing.

I stood in the doorway and watched long enough to understand something I should have known from the beginning.

She had not spent the morning waiting to resume being half of Amy-and-Joanne.

She had been hiking.

I went to shower.

Later, when I came back downstairs, Joanne slid a mug of coffee toward me.

“How was the ridge?”

“Windy. Muddy. Good.”

“How are your knees?”

“National treasure.”

She smiled.

“The lake was good too.”

“Heron?”

“Not this time. Three turtles.”

“Show-off.”

We sat with the coffee between us.

Joanne showed me her turtle pictures. One was blurry. One was excellent. The third contained mostly somebody else’s backpack.

I showed her the ridge view.

“That is beautiful,” she said.

“You would have hated the wind.”

“Probably.”

“And I would have liked the turtles.”

“Probably.”

We did not use either sentence to recruit the other.

No one had won the day.

We had simply spent the same Saturday honestly.