We start to walk down the tote road together. She understands my need to pace. For my part, I am suddenly, urgently in need of a friend. I want to talk, but at the same time, I fear that an innocent inquiry into my well-being might cause me to collapse, like a detonated building.

His jaw set, Warren turns and begins to walk back to the main entrance. After a moment, he says, “You are a difficult woman, Lena.” At last, she smiles. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for years!”

The word she refuses to use is “lonely.” She wasn’t lonely in the way old people are lonely. A reader is never lonely. Besides, she didn’t like people, so how could she be lonely for them? But after the lockdown, early that spring, she began to feel a poignant longing, a quickening at the sound of footsteps.

“I was wondering. In plant life, is there any equivalent of a familial relationship?” he asks. “Do plants grow near one another out of sheer convenience, or by design?” She rubs her runny nose. “Are plants attracted to each other? Is that what you’re asking?” “I suppose so.” “Well,” she says. “Plants are touching underground, through their root

She has been called, in various registers of respect, an “original,” a “square peg,” and “an acquired taste.” She felt no indignation when she’d overheard two fellow residents in her retirement community discussing her recently in the solarium. “I like Lena,” one had said. “I mean, in the abstract.”

Because, another one? Already? If a nurse was needed, I was a nurse. If a porter was needed, I was a porter. A scribe, a janitor. An undertaker. And no one ever said, Gee. Gee, this isn’t what you signed up for at all. This makes no sense at all. Down is up. I didn’t want to be called a hero. I wanted someone to acknowledge my moral injury.

If you do get lost, you use the marker method. Stop and think “I am HERE.” Tie your camp towel or something to a tree at your current location. Look for the trail, but never go out of sight of that marker. If you don’t find the trail one way, go back to your marker and try another direction.

It had been such a long night. One of the longest of her long life. Her mind was normally a hearthside—a home. Throughout her life, being alone was being intact. She cannot bear the suggestion that her mind is unsafe, a wild place where she wanders, a subject.

Listen, no one hikes two thousand miles because they’re happy. Even the most cheerful or uncomplaining hikers aren’t “happy.” You’ve got to have a significant fire under you to slog through over two thousand miles of jagged rocks, rain, and snakes.