My Hiking Partner Said My Bad Knee Needed Easier Trails—Except There Was Nothing Wrong With My Knee
PART 9
Winter made the new arrangement easier because weather canceled everybody equally.
Joanne and I met for coffee more than we hiked.
I joined the club twice without her.
Once, I turned around early myself.
The January trail had become a sheet of refrozen mud halfway up a shaded slope. Benita recommended the group reverse course.
Nobody argued.
I wanted to.
The old reflex rose in me immediately: we had driven an hour; we had traction devices; we could still make the overlook.
Then a man in front of me slid half a foot and caught himself on a tree.
I said, “Turning around sounds excellent.”
Benita gave me no medal.
Back at the parking lot, I was surprised by how little humiliation followed.
That night I texted Joanne.
We turned around because trail was icy. Civilization survived.
She replied:
Proud of your growth. I stopped at 2 miles today because coffee smelled good.
Show-off.
By February, we had found a rhythm.
Some Saturdays together. Some apart.
We also started doing things that had nothing to do with trails. Joanne came with me to a warehouse sample sale for work and spent forty minutes judging lamps. I helped her move a bookcase and was reminded that our shared talent for carrying heavy objects did not require elevation gain.
One Friday night we met for dinner and did not discuss hiking until dessert.
I noticed because I had expected the silence around the subject to feel like avoidance.
Instead it felt like evidence that the friendship had rooms I had ignored while admiring the trailhead.
The friendship did not become effortless.
Once Joanne heard that Priya and I were planning an eight-mile spring hike and went quiet for the rest of lunch.
I finally said, “Are you angry?”
“No.”
“Jealous?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you for picking a noun.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I hate that I am jealous.”
“I hate that you lied about my knee.”
“I know.”
“See? We both have hobbies.”
She laughed.
Then she admitted she had imagined me and Priya becoming the new pair.
I said, “Priya is seventy-one and has already told me she refuses to coordinate calendars around my emotional development.”
“That is why I like her.”
“I am not replacing you.”
“You cannot promise that nothing changes.”
“No.”
That answer was harder and more honest.
I could promise my intent.
I could not promise the shape of years.
Neither could she.
In late February, I joined a seven-mile hike after a week of poor sleep and too many work dinners.
At mile five, I was done.
Not unsafe. Not injured. Done.
The route had a two-mile cutoff back to the lot and a four-mile extension to the overlook.
Old Amy would have taken the extension because she had announced seven miles and therefore had become legally bound to seven miles.
I took the cutoff.
At the lot, I sat in my car for a minute waiting for shame.
It did not arrive.
What arrived was hunger.
I drove to a diner and ate eggs at two in the afternoon.
When I told Joanne, she did not congratulate me for finally understanding her.
She said, “Did you get toast?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I appreciated that more than a lesson.
The experience also clarified something I had been avoiding. If I wanted different routes to stop carrying emotional weight, I could not reserve flexibility for Joanne while treating my own preferences as proof of identity.
Some days I wanted the ridge.
Some days I wanted the cutoff.
Some days I wanted coffee before either.
In March, Benita emailed the club registration for the spring weekend at Pine Ridge.
The same lodge.
The same routes.
Red ridge card. Yellow falls. Blue lake.
I forwarded it to Joanne without comment.
She replied ten minutes later.
Lake for me.
I typed:
Ridge for me.
The dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
Finally:
Want to share a room anyway?
I smiled.
Yes.
A week before the trip, Joanne came over for dinner. The blue fall map was still tucked into a basket by my kitchen desk.
She pulled it out.
“You kept this?”
“I keep receipts for appliances I no longer own. Do not assign meaning too quickly.”
She unfolded it.
The ridge route was marked in red pencil from my notes. The lake loop had a small circle where Joanne had seen the heron.
She tapped the paper.
“Look at us. Separate colored lines.”
“Scandalous.”
“Do you ever wish I had just said I wanted the lake loop?”
“Yes.”
“Do you ever wish you had not made all those slow-group jokes?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I was worried we were becoming evolved.”
I handed her a glass of iced tea.
Then she said, “At Pine Ridge, if people ask why we split up—”
“We tell them the truth.”
“That we wanted different routes.”
“Yes.”
“No explanation?”
“No medical fiction.”
“High standard.”
“I am demanding.”
She folded the map again.
This time, she did not fold the ridge out of sight.
We put it on the calendar.
Before she left, Joanne stood in my front hall with her hand on the doorknob.
“You know the weirdest part?” she said.
“What?”
“I thought if I stopped being your hard-hike person, I would stop being useful to you.”
“That is a depressing view of friendship.”
“I know.”
“I thought if you stopped wanting hard hikes, you were giving up some version of yourself I liked.”
“That is also depressing.”
“I know.”
We looked at each other.
Then Joanne said, “Excellent. Mutual disappointment.”
“Growth.”
She hugged me and left.
I also had an eight-mile club hike with Priya in May.
Joanne knew.
Nobody hid anything.
