Praise for Monument Road
“Quimby’s storytelling, his humane impulses and his lyrical passages on the meaning of love and time, and on the history, geology and botany of the region, will surely impress readers.”
—MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
“Not to be overlooked is the love, humor and friendship among pain and loss, which makes it a book far more about the richness of life than the finality of death.”
—GRAND JUNCTION DAILY SENTINEL
“Part modern western, part mystery, this first novel will appeal to fans of Louise Erdrich and Kent Haruf. Quimby’s prose reads so true, it breaks the heart.”
—BOOKLIST, starred review
“The Colorado setting and the author’s simple style of prose perfectly complement the complexity of the human spirit in this superb debut.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Monument Road is so rich with landscape, character and event that such a small telling cannot begin to do it justice. Read this exquisite story; it is a joy and a wonder and a tour de force of authorship.”
—SHELF AWARENESS
“A big-hearted novel chock full of memorable characters, a pleasure to read.”
—DAVID RHODES, author of Jewelweed
“In prose that might have been chiseled from the magnificent landscape he describes, Charlie Quimby has written a great big American Novel. Full of pathos and humor and sadness, you won’t reach the end of this book without feeling fuller and wiser.”
—PETER GEYE, author of Wintering
“A book of confessions and connections, fear, forgiveness and, ultimately, the stirrings of redemption.”
—HIGH COUNTRY NEWS
“The landscape and characters of Monument Road ring true.”
—DAN O’BRIEN, author of Stolen Horses
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. No reference to any real person is intended or should be inferred.
First Torrey House Press Edition, October 2016
Copyright © 2016 by Charlie Quimby
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written consent of the publisher.
Published by Torrey House Press
Salt Lake City, Utah
E-book ISBN: 978-1-937226-68-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016930117
Author photo by Susan Cushman
Cover art by Gayle Gerson
Cover design by Alisha Anderson
To Emma, Jane and Susan,
who have granted me all I know of home.
And though one says that one is part of everything, There is a conflict, there is a resistance involved
—Wallace Stevens
An accident gradually gets accepted as the thing that needed to happen.
—Rumi
Contents
Part One: June – August
Part Two: September – October
Part Three: June
Acknowledgements
About Charlie Quimby
Native landscaping costs less to maintain than non-native plantings and turf grasses.
—“Home” with Meg Mogrin, Grand Junction Style
She had been born here and so had to learn that eyes from wetter climes saw brown as the color of failure. The dismay of northerners weary of rain and snow should have been obvious from those unhappy years in Denver when she looked toward the alien east unstopped by the mountains. Farmtowns dustbowled out of existence. Cattle living in feedlot shit. A dachshund-colored haze lapping the sky. The city clutching the skirt of the Front Range and burying its face in snowcaps, granite and redrock. Though not so apparent here, the west slope of the Rockies shared that arid reality with the relentless high plains.
Homebuyers craved green. Green represented sanctuary, abundance, progress, fecundity, and until they encountered it in full sufficiency, Meg Mogrin might as well have been showing them burial plots. Her job was to guide the immigrants gently, since surely they had hoped to find in these brown barrens their own little patch of swampland.
She made sure retirees saw the orchards and vineyards and golf courses. Families she drove past the sprinklered ball parks and the waterslide at the pool, pointing out the gasflame-blue sky through windows sealed against its swelter. And in season, the Botanical Gardens. In the west, she would say, towns thrive only because of water and here we are at the junction of two grand rivers. From drive-by distance, the tamarisk remained a distant splurge of olive foliage and pink feathery blooms, not a creeping riverbank strangler. Butterflies shimmered among lavender blossoms, unmindful that the soil once hosted mill tailings and scrapyards.
On glorious mornings like this one, it was easy to forget how much of the town had settled atop ruin and reclamation.
Meg stopped to watch five made-up little girls strut across the parking lot toward the Discovery Castle. They looked like barhopping bridesmaids wearing leotards and leg warmers, saggy tees and pixie tutus layered in bright pastels, hair bunched by head scarves, wrists rattling with plastic bracelets. Their ten-year-old voices piped the chorus of “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” A watchful mother young enough to be Pat Benatar’s daughter followed, no doubt conscious of how closely the Botanical Gardens bordered the river camps. Her gaze sought Meg’s reassurance and solidarity. What can we do? she seemed to ask.
Meg could only shrug. She had given up shepherding children when she forsook the classroom for a profession that offered more finality. After she sold a house, she never once worried what would become of it.
She put her pickup back in gear, the company truck, a GMC three-on-the-column half-ton from the seventies. In the flush of her first upper-six-figure sale, she had purchased it already spiffed up with a tri-tone paint job and slapped on a High Country Living logo. It was impractical as an everyday ride. The idea was to leave it in the parking lot as a free billboard outside the RE/MAX second floor realty office. Then the recession hit and she had to dump the lease on her Escalade. With only the Jimmy to drive, she discovered how effortless it was to be noticed without being scrutinized, almost as if the pickup granted her temporary dispensation to be a man. If not exactly a classic, the truck was a survivor that could signify upmarket western Americana to prosperous retirees and let crusty