On the Divinity of Second Chances (29 page)

Jade on the Third-World Planet
(August 9)

Tonight when I wake, Josh is in my bed. I’m stunned. I rest my hand on his precious face and lay my head on his chest. I adore him.

He stirs, gives my back a couple strokes, makes a couple “Mmm” noises, and whispers, “Are you awake?”

Oh, no. “Yes,” I reply.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“I’m all right,” I answer. “It’s a nice surprise that you’re here.”

He doesn’t acknowledge the other night. “Are you going to be okay?”

“What do you mean, like one of these nights am I going to fall asleep inside?” I clarify.

“Yeah,” he answers. “I don’t really see you bouncing back yet. I just wonder if you’re going to be okay.”

“Yeah,” I answer. “Yeah . . . it’s just really hard being here sometimes.”

“What do you mean here? Here with me, or here in your apartment, or here in Mont Soleil, or here in life . . . ?”

“Earth. I mean Earth.”

“What are you saying?” His arm gets rigid and stops rubbing my back.

I prop myself up on my elbows. “Josh, I’m not suicidal, if that’s what you’re thinking. I already tried that in another life. It didn’t work. I was just shuffled right through to a new life, and had to start all over again. No, I’m definitely not suicidal.”

“So what are you saying?”

I pause for a minute to try to think of how to explain this. “I went to massage school with a woman who served in the Peace Corps in Africa. She had amazing stories. I think Earth life is like her trip to Africa. You know, when you’re back in your comfortable life in the States, Africa seems like a great adventure. You know it’s going to be hard sometimes, but you sign up anyway because it sounds so interesting. Then you go there and wonder, What did I get myself into? You’re not sure you’re going to make it. Flies are in all your food and you finally get hungry enough to just go ahead and eat insect larvae. There’s no toilet paper, so what are you going to do? You have to wipe your ass with your hand, and then just wash your hand. When it’s finally over, you go home to your friends and family in the States, show some slides, tell stories, which by that time seem funny, about how you ate grubs and wiped your ass with your hand, and everyone, including you, sees your adventure as one big fascinating success. You talk about how much you learned and how grateful you are for that experience. Maybe a couple of your friends run right out and buy tickets. Same with Heaven and Earth.”

When Josh chuckles uncomfortably, it’s clear he doesn’t know what to think or say. That’s okay. He doesn’t see or hear his guide, so I can’t expect him to know what I know.

“I’m just going through a hard time right now is all. Metaphorically speaking, I’m wiping my ass with my hand. But just like if I was in Africa, tomorrow I could be in a fascinating market or listening to some great marimba and feeling really happy I chose to come on this great adventure. Life is like that. The good times don’t last and the bad times don’t last, and before you know it, your third-world adventure is over. You get to go home to where there are hot showers, fresh food, and all the toilet paper you could ever want. While you’re in Africa, though, it really is better for your peace of mind if you don’t think about the States too much—if you just give in to the experience and be present in Africa. I know all this, but I don’t know that it makes it any easier. Actually, I know for a fact it doesn’t.” Life is like the news. More understanding and awareness about current events don’t make watching the news more enjoyable—only more interesting.

Rather than say anything, Josh just rubs my back.

“That’s nice,” I say.

“My backrub?”

“Yeah, it’s like the marimba music I was waiting for.”

He kisses the top of my head, holds me tight, and goes back to rubbing my back.

The Moon on Aretha
(August 13)

The moon above sees it all. It understands Aretha is like a new moon, something that is there but cannot be seen, something that is simply between phases.

The moon sees Jade’s strong fingers sinking into the abdomen of her massage client, releasing the psoas muscle that causes Linda, or Hip Problem Lady as Jade calls her, so much pain. Linda breathes, Jade waits, Grace lays her hands on. The moon sees this, and the moon sees something these three cannot.

Outside, the moon sees Lula, Linda’s Doberman, sniff the fence. She runs along the fence until she reaches a knothole in one of the boards, and sticks her nose through it. It meets the nose of Orca, a gigantic black lab with a white star on his chest. Orca smells Lula and finds her irresistible. He paws the fence. He stands up against the fence, but cannot see over the top. He sizes up the six-foot-tall wooden fence, and remembers jumping such a fence when he was just two, but he is older now. The smell of Lula drives him crazy. He’s determined. He shifts his focus from the top of the fence to the bottom, and begins digging. He digs zealously, until at last the hole is just large enough for him to crawl through.

The moon sees Aretha waiting for the gametes from Lula and Orca to come together in that miraculous, life-creating union. Aretha condenses her spirit until, at last, the moment is right for her to jump into the body of Lula. Here, her new body will gestate, until it is time for her new journey, this time in the body of a dog that lives to swim and fetch. It will be an exciting new experience.

The full moons of each month look slightly different. The moons of late summer appear larger and richer in color and warmth, yet it is in fact the same moon. So it is with the spirit of Aretha, appearing slightly different in each incarnation, but recognizable as the constant she truly is. The moon knows dogs have a way of finding the people with whom they want to spend another life, and has no doubt it will happen. It will be a new chapter, an opportunity for new experiences, lessons, and perspectives. And in the way no moon cycle is really better or more valuable than the moon cycle preceding or following, so it is with each chapter in Aretha’s existence.

Pearl on Getting What She Wants
(August 16)

While Beatrice is away on a special shopping trip to Rapid City to get more yarn for baby sweaters, baby booties, and baby blankets, I take down all my snake skins. Twenty-one in all. I roll them up and put them in a burlap sack, which I strap to the back of my bicycle. I take one of the strawberry pies Beatrice and I made yesterday and put it in a box to take to that sweet Andrew Mabey at the post office. I also take my blue ceramic piggy bank.

I start toward town. I wave at Julie, Sasha, Erika, and Rod along the way. Julie is working with a new horse, an Appaloosa, which is a surprise being that all her other horses are Morgans. Sasha, of course, is still in her garden, and Erika and Rod are fixing their turkey fence. Hopefully they’ll deal with their geese, too. If you’ve ever been chased by a gaggle of killer geese when you’re on your bike, you know nothing is scarier, not even George Stewart’s pit bulls. I wonder if a gaggle of geese has ever killed a bicyclist. I’ll have to ask around.

I drop off Andrew’s pie first, and get my mail. I do believe I made Andrew’s week. No good mail. Just advertisements. I throw them away. I continue a few doors down to Wallace’s Boot Shop. My snake skins plus twenty-five dollars in change get me the red cowboy boots I’ve been dreaming of. Maybe I’ll wrap them up and give them to myself for Christmas or my birthday with a tag that reads, “To Pearl, from the Rattler Family.” Beatrice would be incensed. Yeah, better not. She wouldn’t see the humor in it, and that would make her hate my boots. Nah, maybe I’ll just ditch the box at the post office and pretend I’ve had the boots a long time.

Olive on Effort and What She Lost
(August 18)

I watch Grandma Pearl and Beatrice as they approach me. Beatrice sways and swishes through the orchard in a lime green dress and work boots, while Grandma Pearl struts like the force she is. They are so beautiful to me, like an extension of the Earth, Beatrice dancing out of its surface with the flowers and wheat, and Grandma Pearl . . . well, she is more like a small buffalo.

My eighth six-inch layer is nearly finished. Before I start my next layer, I’ll need to insert my window bucks.

“It’s really starting to take shape!” Beatrice says with a hint of amazement.

“Yes, Scott McPhereson is coming out tomorrow to trench my water line and dig and install the septic. I can’t believe it’s really happening!”

“You’re really doing it, Olive!” Beatrice is impressed.

“It’s nice to move at this pace,” I say. “I really have time to get lots of ideas and consider all of them carefully . . . where I want nooks and shelves . . . things like that.”

Grandma nods approvingly, then switches gears. “You got a letter from Matt.” She hands it to me. “Meat loaf sound good to you?”

I nod, then open the letter. The weather, yeah, yeah, yeah. How are you, blah, blah, blah. Then there it is: “I’ve fallen in love again. Her name is Alise. She moved into the rental across from the snowboard shop. It was effortless. We’re moving to Mexico. I don’t know what else to say. I thought it would be best for you to know.”

“Are you okay?” Beatrice asks. I read the letter aloud.

“Effortless,” I say. “Of course it was. If it had taken any effort, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“Yeah, God forbid any woman be worth effort,” Grandma Pearl says.

“I’m better off without him, you know. You don’t have to feel sorry for me,” I tell them. “It’s a blessing for me to have that bridge burned.”

“Sometimes people aren’t suited for each other and are better off apart. It still hurts like hell,” Beatrice says, and puts her hand on my back.

When she said that, I don’t know, the dam just broke. I began to sob. They both took me in their arms, one stroking my hair, and the other stroking my back. “I loved him,” I said through my sobs. “I loved him so much. I really thought it was forever.”

“Oh, Olive Oyl, life is really painful sometimes,” says Grandma Pearl.

I jump back, pulling out of their embrace, startling Beatrice and Grandma Pearl. “Oh, my God!”

“What is it?!” they ask in unison. Beatrice’s eyes bulge and Grandma Pearl searches her side frantically for her gun.

“Did you feel that?!”

“Feel what?” shouts Beatrice, looking all around like I’m referring to an earthquake.

I take one of each of their hands and place them on my belly, then take a deep breath . . . “There! That!” Grandma Pearl sighs in relief and Beatrice puts her other hand over her mouth as her eyes well up.

“This baby’s got something to say,” Grandma Pearl tells me.

“You know, Olive, it just might be time to close old chapters,” says Beatrice. “You’re about to start a whole new one and you can’t be carrying a lot of baggage into this one.”

“She shouldn’t be carrying all these heavy building materials, either—at least not by herself,” says Grandma Pearl. “Olive, we’ll gather the Thunderellas to help, so leave the heavy stuff. Many hands make light work.”

I take one last look at the letter in my hands. “Grandma Pearl? Beatrice? Want to go with me to put something in Dean’s barrel that’s really worth burning?” But before they can answer, I feel it again—another kick . . . and then another. “On second thought, I think I’ll make my own little burn pit right here.”

“That’s my girl,” says Beatrice.

“You be sure and send the smoke over Dean’s way,” says Grandma Pearl as she and Beatrice turn to leave.

Phil on What’s Important
(August 22)

Anna, Jade, and I sit in the sunroom of the Soleil Bakery. Anna wanted to go to Verazzano’s, but Jade got to call the restaurant, and so here we are, knee-deep in hippie food. I’m relieved to have a few moments before the waitress brings us our sandwiches. I don’t know why a person can’t just get a normal sandwich here.

Then I look over at Anna, and see her smiling at Jade, and I remember what’s important. As much as it kills me to waste seven bucks on a sandwich I probably won’t like, it is worth seven bucks just to be sitting here with a wife who somehow still loves me and a daughter who didn’t leave either. I can always go home and make myself a turkey sandwich later.

I hand Jade a birthday gift wrapped in the
Wall Street Journal
. She looks at it and smiles. “Your wrapping paper is so you, Dad,” she says.

I shrug.

She tears the paper off, and examines the gift, a children’s book called
On the Day That You Were Born,
which Cheryl at the bookstore helped me pick out for her. She flips through the pages and reads it. “Dad, I don’t know what to say,” she finally says with tears in her eyes.

“I wanted to make sure that you knew how much I love you and always did, even back in the days when maybe I didn’t know how to show it better,” I say.

She stands up and leans over to hug me. “I never doubted it,” she says. “And I love you, too, Dad.”

Then she sits back down and picks up Anna’s painting, still wrapped in paper. “Is this from our day together?” Jade asks.

“Not exactly,” Anna answers.

Jade tears the floral wrapping paper off. I think about how much wrapping paper costs and wonder why Anna didn’t just wrap her present in dollar bills, and then I catch myself and remember it doesn’t matter. Jade tears the two or three dollars’ worth of wrapping paper off the painting and scrunches it up, revealing a painting of her lying on her side in an aspen grove. Behind her lies a fallen tree, and in front of her, Aretha sits on guard.

Jade’s face scrunches up, and I think she is going to cry, but she regains her composure and says, “Thank you, Mom. I love it.” She stands and reaches over to hug Anna. “I’m pretty darn lucky,” she says.

And it strikes me even harder that I am, too. I look at my beautiful wife and my beautiful daughter, and even the hummus sandwiches the waitress brings us can’t ruin it.