Always Watching

sometimes if it was more out of fear of becoming my mother than vanity.
    That day there were a couple of young men in the store, wearing faded bell-bottoms and loose, caftan-styled shirts, ponchos for coats, strange knit toques, their hair almost as long as my mother’s. Back then, in the late sixties, it was common to see hippies in town, but I still thought them fascinating. I flipped through some magazines at the counter while I watched my mom talking to the earnest young men. I was used to men paying attention to my mother, with her pale blue eyes and long dark hair, her body slim from working on the ranch; she always attracted attention, but something seemed different about the tone of this conversation. Though it was cold out, the men were wearing sandals, and I couldn’t stop looking at their feet.
    I don’t know what they had said to my mom, but by the time we drove home, she had switched to her up phase. Laughing as she careened around corners, her eyes too bright, teasing us kids, who were terrified, for being “scaredy-cats.” Robbie tried not to show his fear, but his knuckles were white as he gripped the truck door, his other arm around my shoulders, holding me in place. It wasn’t the first time she’d taken us on one of her wild rides.
    Years later, when I was twenty-six, my mother was killed in an accident. She’d slid on wet roads and lost control, hitting a tree doing a hundred. But I’d read the report, there were no skid marks: She never tried to slow down. She wasn’t trying now either.
    When we finally made it home, Robbie climbed out, and I slithered after him on wobbly legs. Mom had already leaped out, slamming the door behind her. We followed her into the house, a small rancher with cedar-shake siding, a sloping floor, and so many leaks we had buckets all over the house when it rained. Mom was in her bedroom, throwing clothes into a suitcase.
    Robbie said, “Mom, what are you doing?”
    “We’re getting out of here. Grab your things.”
    Robbie said, “Are we going on a trip?”
    “Pack everything—we’re not coming back.”
    Robbie’s face was scared. “We can’t just leave Dad—”
    She stopped and turned to us. “He leaves us alone for months—I can’t live like this anymore. We’re going to stay with some people out by the river.”
    A kaleidoscope of confusing thoughts spun through my mind. Was she going to divorce our dad? What people? Did she mean the hippies we’d met?
    She said, “They’re a revolution, and we’re going to be a part of it. We’re going to change the world, kids.”
    Both Robbie and I knew that she wasn’t going to change anything, except probably her mood in another day or so, but we also knew it was best just to go along with her. She would come down eventually, and then we’d go home.
    Now she pulled some old suitcases out of the closet and handed them to us. “Pack your clothes and anything else you want to bring.”
    Robbie and I looked at each other, then he nodded: Just do as she says, it will be okay. I was scared, but I trusted Robbie.
    All I brought were some clothes and my books. When we were finished, we found Mom outside by the truck, her suitcase and bags full of food already thrown in the back. Our dog, Jake, a black border collie mix with one blue eye, followed us out of the house, his tail wagging in concern, and an anxious whine leaking from his throat. Terrified she was going to leave him—we had two cats, Jake, and a couple of horses—I said, “What about the animals?”
    She paused in the middle of throwing some of Dad’s tools in the truck, a confused expression on her face, like it was the first time she’d even thought about our pets. After a moment, she said, “We’ll take them. They should be free too.” She turned to us, her eyes lit up with frantic energy, her skin coated in a fine sheen of sweat. “You kids don’t know how lucky you are. You’re going to experience something amazing. Your lives are going to change forever.”
    *   *   *
    The commune was in a clearing alongside the river, hidden from the logging road, which leads up to Glen Eagle Mountain, by a thick wall of forest. The river wrapped around one side of the clearing and glimpses of jade green pools were visible through the trees. As we came into the center of the camp, the forest opened up beside the river to reveal a sandy beach, with the odd dead tree from winter runoffs littering the shore. One tree made a makeshift