Live Like You Were Dying (15 page)

The morning that we were to leave, Heather and Malley were standing by the rim of the canyon. Clanging from the pole, a U.S. flag whipped against a breeze meant for springtime.

“Taking one last look?” I moved to allow an Asian couple a photo opportunity. There was a lot to take in. In the last few days we'd crammed as much in as we could, even giving in to Malley's wish to ride to the bottom of the canyon on mules.

My favorite day had been spent fly-fishing along the Colorado River that ran deep inside the canyon. It was the water that first brought me together with my father. As a boy, I'd learned to fish with him at Brouser's Pond. His thick and callused hand showed me how to cast a line, unhook the catch, and clean it for supper. Talk of bait, water levels, and those that got away were all the words we needed back then. Now it would be the water that brought us full circle, students stepping out into unknown waters, casting in ways we'd never tried.

The fishing guide, Hawley, was not much older than I was, but he could make his line sing as it flew across the water; mine always ended up diving and whipping the edge of the bank.

Standing next to my father, grinning at him whenever he made a smooth cast and grimacing when he twisted it in knots, I realized that all of the things that I'd been called after surviving the accident at the plant were now true. I was lucky and blessed all at the same time. I'd been there when this man with the faded green cap had taught me how to do his favorite thing in life, to cast a rod. And

I was there when he was man enough to admit that there was still more that he could learn.

“Words,” Heather said, taking that final look at the canyon on our last day. “Words can't describe this place. I feel so insignificant.”

Wrapping my arms around her, I could feel the pulse in her neck. Her skin was warm and sweet, and I tried hard to memorize the smell as much as the view before us.

“Look,” Malley said. She was standing by a small plaque etched into a stone column of the observation deck.

Heather leaned down lower and read the words aloud. “O Lord, how manifold are thy works. In wisdom hast thou made them all. The earth is full of thy riches.”

A silence fell upon the deck, and only the wind could be heard as it lifted our hair and the lapels of our jackets. We stood there one last time, staring out at the greatest sanctuary ever created, and I thanked the Lord for the gift of His beauty in the places and faces that I'd encountered on the trip.

My father pulled the camper trailer around to the side parking lot next to the lodge. It was then that I started to ask Heather to cancel the tickets and to follow us back. But she had her schedule the same as I had mine. There was a high-school reunion in the works, and the Walker twins had talked her into serving on the host committee. She had even mentioned an opening at the high school in Choctaw but never went so far as to say that she was interested in applying. Our future was as wide-open as the canyon we were leaving behind.

“When do you expect to be home?” Heather asked, never realizing that she was now referring to Choctaw, Georgia, as our place of residence.

“A week probably. I don't know; we're men of leisure, remember.”

She brushed my face with her hand, and her hair swept up in the wind. Placing my hand against her head, I pulled her closer one last time. “I'll love you long after the cliffs have caved in and the canyon is filled. Don't you forget that.”

Heather seemed puzzled as she let go and looked at me, searching me with her dark eyes. She licked her lips and called for Malley. “I want you home, Nathan Bishop. I want you home.”

As they drove away to the airport, my father and I watched them go. Malley turned around and faced us as they moved closer to the entrance of the park and then down the highway to our future.

My father gripped the top of my shoulder, gave it a squeeze, and then cranked the truck. As we drove away from the place that held my mama's dreams and the keys to my peace, I whispered, “Drive slow.” The sun flooded the side of the passenger window, and I squinted to make out the red, gray, and orange colors of the canyon. With the shift of the sun, the colors changed just as sharply as the colors in the glass figurines that my mama used to keep on top of the coffee table at our home. Colors that would continue to tint my memories until my last day on earth.

Chapter Twelve

You get to know a person after traveling with him for more than two weeks straight. The time he takes his meals, the way he refuses to drive more than five miles over the speed limit, even the way he holds the steering wheel with one arm propped up against the truck window. Across the miles it's the small things that become tattooed on your mind. The small details fill in the gaps until you're satisfied that you really know the person sitting next to you.

Even though there were some things that we still chose to keep to ourselves, the wall of silence that had troubled me at the start of the journey now seemed a natural part of us. The sound the tires made as we drove over the cracks in the road and the whine of the wind as it sneaked through a leak in the door, those were the sounds that filled the truck. We listened and wondered where we would go from here with nothing left to hide, nothing left to battle. A good kind of tired, the kind that comes from a day of hard, manual work, left me satisfied and hungry for more.

“What day of the week is it, Tuesday?” My father asked while looking at the clock on the truck dashboard.

“Monday,” I said. Instead of worrying that he'd slipped into some stage of forgetfulness, I was grateful that time was something that no longer kept a fence around him.

“You think you'd mind if we slipped up to Colorado on the way home?” my father asked. “I've been thinking about that place. I think I'd like to drive past Fort Carson one last time.”

Snowcapped mountains stretched over the range, and I wished that Heather and Malley had followed us back home. There was no end to the sanctuaries. They were as plentiful as the denominations that lined the roads back in Choctaw. Since writing the letter to Jay Beckett, the thought of work had slipped away somewhere in the back of my mind. Now I once again found myself thinking back to work goals I'd made for the coming year. I'd planned to take some of the plant engineers on a rock-climbing trip to the Rocky Mountains. It was to coincide with the signing of our new contract with the mill. I'd even joined a gym and began toning up. Now all those details seemed attached to the life of another person I'd met but never really known. We went higher into the mountains, and as we approached a bend in the road, I pictured myself borrowing my father's John Deere cap and throwing my old goals inside. Rolling down the window, I'd inhale the clean air and then dump the hat's contents down into the valley far below, where buzzards and other scavengers take care of what's no longer alive.

We made our way back to Choctaw without realizing that Father's Day was two days away. Grand Vestal's house was dark when the truck lights hit the front porch. As if timed, one bedroom light came on, and then another. Standing on the porch with Heather and Malley, Grand Vestal's white robe and loose gray hair made her look like a ghost with outstretched arms. “Sorry to wake everybody,” I said.

Malley wrapped her arms around me while Heather offered a sleepy kiss. We all moved like robots, and for a second I wondered if the entire journey had only been a dream.

After my father left for home, I started to unpack. I found a crumpled envelope, stained and folded in quarters, on the nightstand next to the bed. “What's this?” I asked while unbuttoning my shirt.

Heather walked into the bedroom, rubbing lotion on her hands. She hugged me from behind, and her breath was hot against my ear. “Malley found it when we got back home. It was under the bottom panel of your mama's hope chest. There were all sorts of things. We think she even kept a lock of your hair in it too.”

Weariness burned my eyes, but there was no way I would sleep without first finding out what was inside the envelope.

Walking through the house, I ventured to the back porch. Wind rattled the edge of the paper as drops of rain began to land on the porch steps. There was no guessing who had written the tiny words. My heart raced as my eyes soaked up the words like they might evaporate from the page.

Dear Barbara,

What a week we've had. I'm sitting out here thinking what a blessed man I am to be able to welcome my first grandchild to the world. Malley. That's some name, and she's going to be some girl. My heart filled up with the pride of a rich man when you held her and cupped her head the same way you used to hold Nathan. We've shared a lot of good times together, but I got a feeling this little girl will be one of the best yet. We'll watch her grow up into a young woman, and she'll call us Grandma and Grandpa. But I got to tell you, I don't know any grandmas that look as beautiful as you.

When we were driving back from Atlanta, I got to studying about Nathan. I'm proud of our son. He is a self-made man who loves his wife, and he's going to be a good daddy. I'm proud, not because of what I've done, but because of what you've done to help Nathan grow into a man of character. Part of me never knew how to treat him, not wanting him to be babied and turn out soft. The other part of me didn't want to be harsh on him the way my own daddy was on me. I was always worried I'd do him harm in some way and he'd end up feeling the same about me as I did about my own daddy. So not knowing what to do, I made the mistake of doing nothing. I'm man enough to admit it, I love my son. I can only thank the good Lord that you were here to show him your love, and I'm glad that you're here to love me now. You're the center of our family and the keeper of our hearts.

We can't go back in time. You've told me that over and over again. So let's just move forward, sharing our lives with this baby girl. Teach me how to be a good grandpa. Teach me how to show her love.

I love you,
Ronnie

Smoothing out the wrinkled paper, I read the words until they were memorized. Lines from the letter filled the gaps of my story the same way they filled the canyons of my soul. Sitting there listening to the rain fall against the tin roof, I couldn't help but thank God for leading my mama to save that letter, for securing it in a place that the girl it was written about would find it.

Holding the keys to my father's heart, a sense of responsibility fell upon me. The knowledge of just how much my parents loved each other called out a need to protect. Some things should be kept between a man and his wife, my father had told me.

Stepping out into the rain, I held the paper up as water fell across my face and onto my clothes. Washing away the hurts as much as the ink of his words, thoughts meant to be shared only between lovers and life partners smeared until the paper was nothing more than pieces on the ground. The fire of love had first consumed the words my father had written for my mother. Rain now swept the rest of them away. away.

That Sunday after church, we arrived to find my father sitting on the porch step smoking a cigarette. He put it out just as Grand Vestal climbed out the car, pocketbook and braids swinging with her every move. “I was hoping that going on that trip would cause you to give up those cancer sticks,” she yelled. “I heard them say on TV that some of those states won't let you smoke anywhere in public.”

“Yeah,” he said stomping out the cigarette. “That's why I bypassed those places.”

Around back, my father had already started the feast. The portable cooker was boiling with hot grease, and the cooler that we packed with dry ice held the modest catch from our attempt at fly-fishing. Lawn chairs were scattered about the backyard as Heather whipped a white tablecloth in the air and smoothed out the wrinkles on the same card table that once held my birthday cakes when I was a boy.

Grand Vestal slowly walked down the back porch, carrying a tray of potato salad and a plate of sliced tomatoes. “It's going to rain again tonight.” We didn't bother asking her how she knew. Her answer was always the same. “I can see it in the shape of the clouds.”

We're the same as any family on any given Sunday, having a fish fry and celebrating the gift of fathers. I thought of the towns that we passed along the way and wondered just how many of those townspeople were following our example.

After we ate the trout and lingered over Grand Vestal's strawberry pie, we updated them on the trip and the people we'd met along the way.

“Did you really ride a bull is what I want to know,” Grand Vestal asked. Holding up my hand, I just smiled and didn't say a word. “I'm of a good mind to get a switch after you,” she said. “Now, you know better.”

“No, I really don't. And the thing is, if I would have known, I'd have done it anyway.”

Malley placed two gift-wrapped boxes on the corner of the table and then looked at us. “Here,” she said. “Go on and open them now.”

“Malley,” Heather said. “We'll do that when everybody's done with lunch.”

“We don't have a schedule to follow,” Malley said and stepped away to gauge our reaction.

Motioning with his chin, my father instructed me to go first. Tearing into the paper, I found an arrowhead tied to a piece of thick leather.

“It's a necklace. I made it,” Malley said.

Grand Vestal moved closer, wiping her hands on a yellow dish towel. “That arrowhead belonged to your great-great granddaddy. And his daddy before him. It was made for survival.”

Trying it on, the arrowhead felt cold against my skin. “Well, how about that? This is all right. Thank you. I love it.”

“Now your turn, Grandpa.”

My father never said a word as he carefully unwrapped the package. His eyes widened in a way that made me think of how he might have reacted to a gift when he was a little boy. Holding up a photo of him and my mother as young newlyweds at the Colorado base, he shook with the memories of yesterday. Trying to speak, he simply nodded his head. Reaching over, I patted his shoulder and then let go as he moved away toward the side of the house.