The Home Front (20 page)

The chimney was crowned with an impossible overhang. Nobody in their right mind attempted it. Two routes peeled off, one to the right up a diagonal groove, the other to the left over a belly roll. Without hesitation, Todd planted his right foot on the lip of the groove and lunged, arching his back and extending his arms to their utmost reach. He grabbed the overhanging ledge with both hands as his legs swung free. His left hold held. His right slipped and he dangled by one arm, swinging back and forth, back and forth, with nothing above or below to clutch as if his life depended on it, which of course it did. The rope dangled from his waist, more a formality than anything else. He hadn’t clipped in since inserting himself into the rock at the base of Black Widow Chimney. His life didn’t flash before his eyes. Max’s did. A bouncing baby, precocious as you please until his third birthday. The most beautiful boy in the world, blowing out the candles on his cake, squealing with delight one week and with terror the next, a haunted child haunting his father, a specter even more terrifying than the eleven hundred foot vertical drop five fingers away.

Todd’s body responded to the threat while his mind looked on, pondering the futility of it all. Instinctively, he gathered up all his remaining strength to save himself, sticking with the gluey tenacity of a spider to the rock. He crunched his stomach to lever his legs forward, rotating his torso just enough to curve his left foot close enough to toe a crack, but not far enough to compromise the angle of his hand hold. His arm ached with the effort to support the tension of so many muscles moving in so many different directions. Four moves later he was standing on top of the overhang, safe but far from sound. The pain in his muscles subsided, leaving room for the full force of his emotional agony. He untied the rope around his waist, the umbilical cord connecting him with his family. It slithered off the rock, plunging into the void before the nearest carabiner arrested its fall. Short of diving headlong off the cliff, Todd could never escape his domestic demons in Nevada. Paradoxically, his deployment to Afghanistan was like a lifeline. Only it and the unmitigated danger of combat stood between him and doing something stupid enough to clear his mind once and for all.

* * *

There’s something wrong. No there isn’t. Yes there is. No there isn’t. His sister wasn’t arguing. She was eating. Daddy picked up his plate and threw it against the wall. Is there something wrong now, he said. Mommy didn’t pick up her plate. There’s something wrong with you, she said. Not him.

His sister got to eat dessert in front of the television. They cleaned up the mess. I’m sorry. I’m sorry too. Maybe you’re right. I don’t want to be right. I just want everything to be okay.

They kept saying Max Max Max. He wished someone would answer so they would be quiet. He curled up deeper into the place where nothing is ever wrong. No matter what they say.

* * *

Rose’s phone conversations with Tashi completely clarified everything every time. But time was a funny thing. Technically, it didn’t exist, of course. Quantum physics had confirmed what seers have known from the beginning, which is actually indistinguishable from the end. Time is an illusion, a mere mortal construct. Alpha and Omega and everything in between are part of the eternal Now. Nevertheless, time continued to play tricks on Rose. One minute she had clarity, the next she was plagued by the same questions Todd raised during what he called their scintillating conversations about her guru. Far less negativity was attached to her version of these questions, but they plagued her all the same.

On the phone with Tashi, Rose was able to live in the moment. Answers to eternal questions, which seemed light years away when she was on her own, manifested themselves effortlessly. Tashi refused to take credit for anything. She was just the messenger, a kind of glorified Western Union courier delivering the cosmic equivalent of telegrams.
We must first love ourselves before we can love another
stop
what we see depends on what we look for
stop
we only lose what we cling to
. The truth was always simple, not to say pithy, always capable of being expressed in a single declarative sentence.
Change your thoughts and you change the world
.
It is better to travel than to arrive
.

Tashi insisted these truths were self-evident. But Rose couldn’t muster them up when she needed them most, arguing endlessly with Todd. Even when she did manage to remember a stray truth or two, he shot them down one after another, calling them slogans just to piss her off. He had several pet peeves, but one in particular really whipped him into a frenzy.
Disease is a state of mind
. Todd said it was a cheap shot New Age pseudo-spiritual way of blaming the victim. How could innocent children be held accountable for manifesting disease? Tashi had answered this same fundamental question thousands of time, with reference to world hunger, poverty, and genocide, among other atrocities. She answered it with complete confidence and comprehension. Her voice alone vanquished uncertainty, the voice of cosmic clarity. If only Rose had been allowed to tape their conversations. In the interests of focusing on the Now, the Source prohibited recording devices of any kind. Every session with Tashi embodied living in the moment.

Rose remembered something about technological proliferation and the alarming incidence of autism in the richest, most advanced countries in the world. Something about gifted children channeling sensory overload, harbingers of things to come. Prophets were always misunderstood. But they were wont to retreat into deserts, not into themselves. What good was the gift of prophecy if no one could understand the message? Deep down, Rose had no doubt Max was gifted rather than disabled. But she was having trouble digging down to the source of his genius. She needed another conversation with Tashi.

Rose never bothered telling Todd about her one-on-one sessions with Tashi. He would have found out on his own if he hadn’t been so busy at work. Something big was happening over in Pakistan. Judging from his level of preoccupation, Todd and his team were actually making it happen. He wasn’t at liberty to talk about it, but Rose could always gauge his stress level by a tiny little muscle spasm in his left cheek. No one else probably even noticed. He was working so many extra hours he didn’t have time to pay the bills. A model air force wife, Rose was only too happy to pick up the slack at home, which meant Todd never saw the MasterCard bill with the $75 charge for every private phone call. Plus tax. They were on a tight budget. Too bad the armed services didn’t pay overtime.

Rose didn’t consider it lying. More like don’t ask, don’t tell. One of the secrets to the success of their marriage was that they kept secrets when full disclosure would cause more harm than good. The culture of the military bred this kind of secrecy, known professionally as discretion. It was difficult to break the habit, especially when it came in handy. Todd wasn’t at liberty to talk about God knows what. In turn, Rose knew better than to talk about God or whatever matrix of forces was responsible for manifesting universal abundance and prosperity. The last time she made the mistake of bringing it up, Todd said he wished the universe would quit manifesting such an abundance of crapola. Enough was enough.

As long as Todd was too preoccupied to tend to their finances, her secret was safe. Still, Rose would have preferred avoiding a paper trail. But the Source wouldn’t accept alternate methods of payment, not even certified checks. To schedule an appointment with Tashi, you had to enter a credit card number. Rose logged on to the site, plugging in a password created with a very specific intention:
MAXimumPlenitude
. First she had tried just
plenitude
. It had already been spoken for. She had assumed
MAXimumPlenitude
had too many characters until she learned that, in keeping with the promise of abundance, the Source accommodated passwords of unlimited length. Tashi had thought of everything.

The earliest available appointment was the following Tuesday. Rose couldn’t imagine negotiating the weekend without guidance. She tried not to anticipate another scintillating conversation with Todd, which might actually manifest one. Not that he wouldn’t pick a fight anyway, just for the hell of it. If it wasn’t one thing it was another. When they ran out of things to fight about, they had fights about fighting. They even had an argument about tofu. Whether it really qualified as a source of protein. How much tofu it was humanly possible to eat before losing the will to live. That kind of thing. Rose really needed to recharge her battery before Major Doom and Gloom got home from work. The website seemed to read her mind. She clicked on an icon picturing a flame and the pop-up caption “burning desire.” Tashi’s voice filled the room.

If you have a burning question and need to speak with me now, call 1-877-778-7788
.

The flame subsided, and a placidly flowing river appeared on the screen. The phone number drifted with the current, from right to left, followed by a parenthetical “Standard Rates Apply.”

Rose fetched her cell phone and a headset. This time she’d be prepared, both hands free to jot down words of wisdom so she wouldn’t forget them the minute she hung up the phone. She dialed the number and started pacing from one end of the study to the other. She was always nervous when she called Tashi. It felt like dialing direct to God himself, the ultimate long distance call. An automated voice answered on the second ring.

Please state your name after the beep
.

“Rose Barron.”

Her name sounded foreign, somehow, disembodied by the beep. Panpipes started playing over the phone. Rose tried to calm herself, focusing on the pipes’ hollow resonance. She remembered Tashi saying something about how we are all empty vessels through which the breath of God flows, speaking universal truth. Then the voice itself emerged from the music.

“Rose,” Tashi said. “It’s so wonderful to hear from you.”

Rose’s voice caught in her throat. She had meant to be trusting and receptive, to ask heart-centered questions with her chakras wide open. She started crying instead, almost ashamed that her feelings did not reflect her intention.

“Rose, are you there?” Tashi asked.

“I’m here,” Rose sputtered.

“I’m here, too,” Tashi said. “Breathe with me.”

Usually this did the trick, grounding Rose in the Now. She concentrated on the simultaneity of breath flowing in and out of their bodies, the synchronicity of being. But she felt bereft rather than complete, a hollow, utterly empty vessel. She realized she wanted to be asked what was wrong, knowing full well Tashi would never ask such a question. Nothing could possibly be wrong.

“Feeling better?”

“Yes.” To say otherwise would be to attract negative energy. To say that her little boy was suffering would be to invite more suffering into his life. To say that her husband was becoming more distant every day would push him away. The awesome perfection of the universe rendered her speechless.

“Is there something you’d like to meditate on with me?”

“Max.”

“How is our little prophet coming along?”

“He’s a wonder. That’s what I can’t work out.”

“There’s no need to work anything out. Your job is to figure out what you want. Let the universe figure out how to manifest it.”

“That’s just it. I don’t know what I want anymore.”

“A very enlightened observation, Rose. It’s not easy, really knowing what we want. Let alone wanting what’s best for us.”

“I thought I wanted Max to be cured. Isn’t that why he’s in therapy?”

“Therapy is a practice, not a cure.”

Rose grabbed a pen and paper. She would have preferred using her laptop, but Tashi might hear the keyboard clicking. The waiver she signed prohibiting recording devices also discouraged note-taking, yet another future-oriented distraction. But what good was the Now if it kept slipping through your fingers? What good was it if your husband asked questions you couldn’t remember how to answer? If Max was complete and perfect, why did they need to spend hundreds of dollars a week on therapy?
Therapy is a practice, not a cure
. Rose underlined her transcription in an effort to capture the timbre of Tashi’s voice, which made everything sound simultaneously simple and profound, the way panpipes made even unremarkable melodies sound transcendental. She added an exclamation point for good measure.

“People are always searching for cures,” Tashi continued. “The search itself generates disease. Focus on health instead. The truth is they’re actually one and the same anyway. Everything is one.”

“That’s why I called,” Rose said. “I remembered what you said about truth being a paradox. But I can’t remember why. Or what it means.”

“All great spiritual truths are paradoxes. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. Surrender is a sign of strength, not weakness. To truly live, we must die, like the phoenix rising from its ashes. Paradox itself is an illusion. Everything is one.”

Something clicked. Autism was a spectrum disorder because disease and health were part of the same spiritual continuum. Had Tashi said this, or was Rose starting to tap into the Source herself, as the website promised she would learn to do? The universe seemed to come into alignment, galaxy upon galaxy, innumerable solar systems spinning a design too grand to be flawed. Too big to fail. Viewed through this vast prism, everything made sense. But did this cosmic vision really change anything in the infinitesimal orbit of her own family? Max might be perfectly healthy, but he was still locked in an alternate universe. No matter how abundant, it was isolated. Inaccessible. Her momentary enlightenment gave way to yet another dark night of the soul.

“If autism isn’t a disease, what is it?”

“Autism is a sixth sense.”

“At the expense of the other five? Max acts deaf half the time. And blind. He looks right through us. Like we’re not there.”

Rose was progressively distraught. The voice never wavered. It was impervious to anxiety on the other end of the line, no matter how monstrous the cause. Infidelity, disease, and even death were all as one, blessings in disguise. Opportunities for growth.