Pisgah Road Read online

  “Are you sure, Gabrielle?” I needed all the help I could get, but she had not paid much attention to the map earlier.

  “I had a long conversation with the innkeeper about the trail before we left and I remember how he was excited about the strange turn of the river in this area.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked again unsure of myself more than her memory. She did have a good conversation with the innkeeper asking him about the woods and the river and the trails as if she was preparing for this moment, knowing that I may not be able to come through for us.

  She stood up and replied, “I am very sure.”

  I looked up and she took a picture and then another. In the photo, I am sitting on the bank of the river planning and looking at the new curve she had drawn. She had leaned down to take the picture so I was partially looking at the camera and I could see that my eyes shone with our success. Part of the map that helped us find our way back shows well in the picture as well.

  “Let’s go.”

  She grabbed my hand and pulled me up and then kissed me on the lips. “I knew we would find the way back.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “I trust you,’’ she replied for my benefit.

  I pulled her towards me and kissed her. I should have apologized or at least said something kind after being so unpleasant to her for most of the day but I didn’t, hoping that she would understand. She always did.

  We started to walk back in the direction that I was certain was the right one. We walked for two hours and we kept the conversation light to keep both of us from becoming too scared. The sun was lowering in the sky by the minute and the cold breeze had picked up. We were sharing the blanket to keep warm, which only helped to slow us down and make us more anxious. I was about to ask Gabrielle if anything around us looked familiar when she cried out, “Look!”

  I looked around but everything seemed like a duplicate of what we had seen in the past two hours.

  “Look down,” she insisted.

  I looked and noticed that we had been walking through the Bluebells, those beautiful familiar welcoming purple little flowers. They were back and we knew we were close. We stopped to rest, feeling utterly exhausted but truly relieved.

  I kissed her and she kissed me hard and said in a very serious tone, “I’ll bet you if we had shagged earlier by the river, a copper would have shown up and cited us for public nuisance. And then we could have asked him for the directions back.”

  “And you’ve had experience with this, darling?”

  Gabrielle’s mouth twisted a bit and her eyes grew in size. “Fuck. Daniel told you, didn’t he? What an arse!”

  “It wasn’t Daniel.”

  She gave a mock cry and asked, “Then who?”

  “Alice.”

  “Alice? Fuck. I’ll kill Daniel for telling her and why would she tell you?”

  “She thought it was funny.”

  “Funny? Funny? You think it’s funny to be lectured by some copper while he is staring at your tits? And poor Adriano was terrified. He thought they were going to deport him back to Italy.”

  “Wow! I do not want to have an image of you and Adriano shagging.”

  “We weren’t shagging. I never slept with him. You know that. We were just making out.”

  I had always assumed differently and even though I didn’t show it, I was dancing in my mind when I heard that there was never anything serious between the two.

  “Let’s go.”

  “So do you want to test my hypothesis?”

  “You should have offered it a bit earlier when we were lost.”

  “We’re not anymore? Truly?”

  “No,” I replied with a newfound confidence.

  She exhaled sharply as if she had been holding her breath all this time. It occurred to me she must have been terrified all day, but she had kept it together for my sake.

  “We’re fine, Gabrielle. I’m sure we can find our way back from here easily.”

  I kissed her and she kissed me back with renewed warmth. That’s when she suggested taking a picture of us kissing, a make-up kiss and preserve it on a photo forever.

  We ran the last leg so happy to be back in our inn. It was too late to go back to London and we managed to keep the room for another night. By the time we made it to our room, the summer sun was setting and the air was cool. We took a long bath together and I ate a large steak. Gabrielle was not a meat eater so she had fish, though in her hunger she took a bite of my steak.

  We went back to our room and made love even though we were exhausted. It seemed that we needed the connection after the stressful day.

  “This was one of the best days of my life, thank you,” she told me before going to sleep.

  There is a little note along with the photos. It’s a simple note in Gabrielle’s handwriting: Photos from the best day of my life.

  II

  A few months after I reconnected with Gabrielle, my mother died and I emailed Gabrielle the news. She immediately called me. She had met my mother many times while we lived in London and they liked each other. It was the first time I’d heard her voice in over ten years. It should not surprise you to know that it was both disheartening and rapturous to hear the voice of your first love after a decade. It should not surprise anyone but it did me. The voice that was once so familiar and constant was now somewhat different and yet in its core it was still hers. My memory of her voice was of our younger selves, but the person who spoke to me on the phone was an adult with all that goes with it. If my own voice betrayed anything, I could not tell, as Gabrielle simply took charge as if no time had passed. She told me she was sorry. She told me she had fond memories of my mother.

  Gabrielle and John had moved to Berlin, both working for a large Anglo-German company. She helped with their financial forecasting. She was calling me from Berlin. It must have been very late at night. Gabrielle was gifted with a soothing melodic voice and that had not changed in the past decade. Her voice was as warm and reassuring as before and it was comforting to hear her talk about my mother in such endearing terms. She spoke for an hour. I slept well that night, my best sleep in as many months.

  She was there for me again when my father died. I told her about my father’s little gift. She over-interpreted his advice of not spending it well. She didn’t believe my father, a straight arrow accountant, would give such advice. She thought there was more to it, but she didn’t push the point. Later I told her about my business ticket to London. She told me she wanted to come and see me. I’d hoped she would.

  III

  Two weeks after I found my father, it hit me that my parents were gone for good and the loneliness would be real. It was late at night and I was reading Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons — a real funny story that parodies romanticized rural English life. The protagonist, Flora Poste, had just arrived from London and was standing in the middle of her drab room. There was nothing about the farm or her or the room that should have reminded me of my life or anything close to it, but Flora standing alone in her room making the resolve to stay strong oddly made me feel weak and vulnerable. That’s how my mother must have felt: lonely and without anyone who could understand her misery. But life goes on, doesn’t it?

  It does, if you keep busy. That’s what Gabrielle told me. She told me in her no-nonsense manner, just stay busy. She has had some experience in this. The trick is not to think about them in the morning and a heavy dose of sleeping pills can blur your dreams enough to keep you free throughout the night. There are certain rules that must be followed.

  You shouldn’t linger in bed when you wake up, as early morning freshness may clear your mind and let unwanted feelings in. You get up quickly, without any thoughts and hit the shower. You don’t want the water too warm as it might relax you too much and you don’t want it too cold as it might shock you into reality. You want it just right so you can wash and get out. Then shave (or put your makeup on) while thinking about the work ahead. You can al
ways have a problem at hand if you leave work the evening before with some unresolved issues, some difficulty that might require some thought. If you’re going to have breakfast then have it while you read the paper or work documents. Then on the drive to work listen to the news, not music. Listening to music is dangerous, as some songs bring back memories that can induce melancholy.

  You just have to make it to your office and then you’re free. The days are busy enough to keep you untethered from certain thoughts. You go to work early and come home late because the hours after work and before sleep are the most difficult to manage. I only have one recommendation for that problem: Watch entertaining, but mindless movies. I do that from the minute I get home until it is time to sleep. If you need to read before going to sleep, then read something light. Don’t ever try something cerebral or weighty. They bring out thoughts and the last thing you need is any consciousness. Finally, make sure you take a double dose of the pills thirty minutes before you go to bed. It screws your mind enough so you don’t really understand what you’re reading and it also kills any chance of remembering any of your dreams.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I

  The first page of my mother’s book is blank with the exception of a small dedication: S. and J., Forever. The day the book came out was an especially bad day for my mother. She had caught a cold and with her immune system in disarray, a simple cold had turned nasty. She was rushed to the hospital and there were several harrowing hours before we were told she was stable again, though she had to spend a few more days in the hospital. I was at my parents’ house, collecting some clothes for her, when a box of her published poems appeared at the door. My mother had not allowed us to see the work before its publication, so the whole thing was very new to both my father and me. I grabbed a copy and dashed back to the hospital, not wanting to read it without my father.

  I found him sitting in the empty waiting room, reading an old magazine. It was a small room with a large low white table, a poor imitation of a Dalí design with its curved surface that made it useless as a table. Around the table were six large and heavy chairs with thick armrests, each separated a few feet apart to complete a circle, like a meeting of tribal elders. Everything in the room looked untouched as if no one ever had a reason to wait for someone. The walls too looked freshly painted — peach, I think. The whole place was clearly designed by a person who had never had a loved one in the ICU.

  My father looked up as soon as I walked in and asked, “Did you find your Mom’s blue sweater?”

  That was the one item I was supposed to bring back, but had forgotten as soon as the box of books was delivered. “I forgot. I’ll go back and get it later.” And before my father could say anything else, I added, “I’ve something better.” I took the book out of the bag and showed it to him.

  “Wonderful,” said my father and I could tell he was relieved.

  We had not talked about it but we were both worried that she might not see the final product. I practically threw the book at him before I even sat on the chair next to him. We were too far apart and my attempts to move the heavy chairs closer to each other were futile. At the end, I settled on standing behind him so we could look at her work together.

  My father held the book in his hands and marveled at the size and the look of if for a moment, a tiny book with black background and stylized white title and author. My father traced the words with his finger as though wanting to feel each letter, not just by his sight but also through his skin. We both knew this was my mother’s final work. The cover had the word, “Providence”, and below it, in smaller font, “Sarah S”, my mother’s signature for her books. The “S” stood for my mother’s maiden name, Saldonic, or as my mother liked to pronounce it, Sardonic.

  “Providence!” My father read the title aloud. “I wonder why?”

  I was surprised as well since my mother’s earlier works had long, and at times too long, descriptive titles. She was often criticized for it, but she said she didn’t want any confusion.

  “It’s a good title.”

  “No doubt, son, but I wonder what she means by it? Should I ask her?”

  “No, Dad. She’ll tell us if she wants.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed, a rare admission for him. Nevertheless, he continued to stare at the title as if it might speak to him.

  He took my mother’s work seriously and wanted to fully understand it even though he rarely could get beyond the surface of her words. After a moment of contemplation, he opened the book to the first page and then he let out an involuntary gasp, as though he were jolted by high-powered electricity. He simply stared at the small print in the middle of the otherwise blank page, not wanting to turn it, as if the simple action might erase the words. It was the first time my mother had a dedication page, though even here it was more of a declaration. But there it was in front of him, in hard print for everyone to see, proof that my mother, Sarah, loved my father, Jacob, forever.

  “Do you see it?” he asked with an unabashed pride in his voice.

  My father, and to some extent my mother, belonged to a generation that kept its emotions in check. My parents were always polite to each other, and though they quarreled often, it was always in a strange courteous fashion. The huge age difference also helped to put their relationship in different and certainly unequal footing. I don’t recall my parents ever declaring any terms of endearment for one another. Their way was to merely love each other without verbalizing it. But for a few minutes in that cold hospital waiting room all barriers were broken, and my father, whom I had never seen cry, let go and tears of joy and frustration rolled from his eyes with such intensity that I finally believed my father was capable of warmth and emotion.

  It was a wonderful moment and I will cherish it for the rest of my life even though a few months later, during the last day of my mother’s life, I learned that there was more hidden underneath a single letter than I could have ever imagined. “J” did not only stand for Jacob but it was also the initial of my mother’s first love, Jane, as well. I wondered how she would have managed this, if either of her lovers had had a different name.

  II

  My earliest memories of my mother and Jane are when I was nine, the summer of 1976. My mother was nearly thirty-four and Jane was a few years younger. Yet, and to Auntie G’s great consternation, my mother and Jane would run around like puppies, and giggle like two little girls. I remember Auntie G yelling after them to behave like adults but they didn’t care. They were free and they flaunted it unabashedly. During the day, the farm was a crowded, busy place, with flurries of activities, but at night there was only the four of us and the pitch-black silence of the farm.

  We ate dinner on the large heavy wooden kitchen table with the hum of the old refrigerator as the only artificial sound. Auntie G did not own a TV and the hills that separated us from the town made radio reception very poor.

  Auntie G never liked my father and claimed it was the ten-year age difference that bothered her, but we all knew it was my father’s lack of faith. Auntie G hated him because he was not God fearing enough. In return, my father hated the farm and its chaotic nature. My mother in turn acquiesced to live his life nine months of the year if she were allowed to live her own life on the farm, three months of the year. My father must have done the calculations and found the balance sheet satisfactory.

  Grandpa’s Farm, Auntie G, Jane and all the other major and minor characters that lived and worked on the farm were relegated to parts of my memory that I didn’t access often. They were there, but they were always hazy and remote. In 1983, my father’s work took us to England and we left the country to live in London for several years. We never went back to the farm and for one reason or another no one ever talked about it either. You may think that I would have asked something about it, but I didn’t. Like most teenagers, I lived in the present, neither in the past nor the future. At the time, I was more obsessed with my own life with little foresight or regard for others.r />
  My mother never reminisced either as if that simple act might shatter some of the beauty that was left in her memory of the place. By and by, those memories became hazy, and after more than a decade passed, they became silent until my mother rejuvenated them on her last day.

  III

  “Did you hear me, son?” My mother asked with unfounded trepidation when I didn’t react to her confession of love for Jane. What was there to say?

  I looked at her but she had closed her eyes. She was lying on her side of the large bed, the bed that she had shared with my father for decades though recently she was the only occupant. Their bedroom used to be a simple serene place, modestly decorated with framed portraits. My mother’s writing desk and all her reference books used to occupy most of the room but they were now gone, replaced with a smaller bed for my father and seemingly endless rows of bottles of medicine and other supplies.

  I stared at her for a short moment but she kept her eyes closed. She didn’t want to see me judge her and I didn’t want to look at her with her eyes closed. I had known even though I had dismissed it, and had slowly wiped it out of my memory.

  “Yes.” My own simple declaration was the right response.

  “Do you hate me?”

  Hate her? I wondered if I even had the right to pass judgment on her. That has never stopped anyone though. We constantly measure others’ actions without ever considering the providence of our assessment. I had two options with my mother who genuinely wanted to know my answer. I was certain neither of my responses would have obtruded upon her plans to explain herself. I haven’t earned the right to hate anyone.