I feel like I'm leaping off a bridge. Chapter 1
“Lucy!” Katie sat bolt upright in bed, clutching her chest and calling her daughter’s name as a clap of thunder shattered the silence of her bedroom. Disoriented, she cast her eyes about the dark room, searching for her daughter before realizing she had been dreaming. Lucy was sound asleep in her room upstairs and hardly the teary-eyed toddler her mother had seen in her nightmare.
She fell back on her pillow with her chest aching and looked at the clock. 4:30 a.m. She still had over an hour before the alarm would ring, but she doubted sleep would return. Out of habit, she ran her hand over the crisp, cotton sheets on David’s side of the bed, searching for a husband who had been gone for nearly three years. She listened to the sound of thunder rumbling, quieter as the storm moved away. The rain beat a gentle rhythm on the roof and dripped from the gutters that were already overflowing with autumn leaves in spite of last week’s cleaning.
The rain continued steadily outside her window as gusts of wind picked up, whistling through the branches of the oak beside the drive and filling her with a feeling she struggled to name. Maybe it didn’t fill her at all. Maybe it emptied her instead.
Her breathing caught as she fought the tears that burned the back of her eyes as images of mornings like these spent with David flipped through her mind like the pages of an old photograph album. Her loneliness permeated the muscle and bone of her. She missed him with a quiet, suffocating need. She missed the sound of the water running in their bathroom as she rubbed the last vestiges of sleep from her eyes and began another day, and the sound of his paper rustling as she set the table for dinner. She missed the acutely masculine smells of his aftershave and his old leather jacket. She missed looking out the window and seeing him there, cutting the grass or working on some small project that had more to do with relaxation than repair. She missed a thousand little things that she had never stopped to value in the days when he was with her.
Katie sat up and threw off the quilt, thrusting her memories away. She stared at the clock, fluffed the pillow, tried lying in a different position, and finally gave up on the idea of getting a little more sleep. Rising wearily, she donned her faded, terry robe and wandered into the living room.
The sound of the wind, low and constant, made the house feel colder than it actually was. She pulled her robe tighter around her and sat down at the kitchen table with her laptop, trying to work on lesson plans for the next week, but her mind kept straying back to her dream of Lucy and, to chase that away, to old regrets and lost love.
Truth be told, she was ashamed of her sadness, ashamed of the beastly depression that lurked in the corners of her mind, ready to attack at the most unexpected moments. From the outside, she was quite certain that she appeared to have put her life back together after David’s death. She had worked hard to cultivate that façade. Katie had it all, she thought sarcastically – friends, family, money in the bank, a heart that wouldn’t quite heal, and Mark. Mark – there was another issue.
Where exactly did he fit into the picture that was her life? An occasional dinner? A cup of coffee before work? Drinks, a movie...a social calendar? It didn’t fill the void left by the absence of the husband she had adored. She longed for the stability of her life before the accident that had left her a widow, a single parent, labels she despised for the pity they evoked. And so she clung to her relationship with Mark, unwilling to relinquish the small security it afforded in exchange for the terror of being alone or another new start.
Thunder jarred Katie back to the task at hand. She checked the clock again. 5:15 a.m. “Close enough,” she thought, closing her computer and making her way toward the bathroom. “Time to get started.”
She was dressed in a grey pencil skirt and red sweater and back at the table having coffee by the time Lucy came down the stairs into the kitchen. “Somebody’s up early,” she said, kissing the top of her mother’s sleek, dark bob on the way to the cupboard for the cereal.
“Storm woke me up,” Katie lied. “What do you have going on today?”
“Killer day. I have cross-country after school assuming the rain stops and speech practice at 5:30. Is it OK if I stay in town at Kendra’s between?” Lucy asked as she grabbed the milk from the refrigerator, cereal from the cabinet, and a bowl and spoon from the dishwasher and flopped down in the oak chair across from her mother.
“You know I want you home for dinner, Luc,” Katie began.
“For the love of Pete, Mom, the world won’t stop turning if I eat a frozen pizza at Kendra’s instead of spaghetti here,” Lucy interrupted rolling her hazel eyes as she poured cereal and milk into her bowl. “I’m not planning to make a habit of it, but there’s only gonna be like an hour between. I’d no more than get here and choke down some food before I’d have to turn around and go back to town.”
Katie could hear the exasperation in her daughter’s voice. Lucy was right. Her schedule was tight and likely to get worse as her senior year progressed, but Katie selfishly wanted her only child at home. She wanted to cherish every single moment she had left with Lucy before graduation came. “Fine,” she conceded grudgingly, “as long as you don’t make it a habit.”
“Thanks, Moms,” Lucy said, flashing her deep-dimpled. “Spaghetti after the meet tomorrow, and if I’m not too tanked, I’ll even make the garlic bread. Cheesy, just like we like it,” she called as she headed upstairs, cereal bowl in hand.
Katie returned the milk and cereal to their proper place and took her coffee into the small sitting room that adjoined the kitchen. She sank into her favorite chair and gazed absently at the photos on the shelves that lined one wall of the cozy room and sighed deeply. Frame after frame captured the intimate moments of their life as a family. Lucy and David building a snowman. Lucy’s first Christmas. Lucy in silhouette at a Fourth of July cookout.
Katie could still see the moment in her mind as clearly as she could see it in the frame; Lucy was standing in the fading twilight in a baggy t-shirt with her ponytail slipping from its rubber band, waving a sparkler. The flag by the river’s edge had billowed in the breeze creating a perfect Fourth of July picture. Katie could have almost forgotten in that moment that her daughter was anything other than the little girl who had welcomed her mother into each new day with arms flung open wide and a sleepy smile. She had taken David’s hand and squeezed it tight. “She’s growing up so fast,” she had said.
As if she could hear her mother’s thoughts, Lucy had turned and flashed a smile before returning her attention to the white hot sparks that flew from her fingertips and David had snapped this photo of their then fourteen-year-old daughter. It was such a beautiful picture that she immediately had it enlarged and added it to the family gallery despite Lucy’s cries that she looked like “a little kid.”
Katie rose from her chair, shook her head to clear her mind of the memories, and carried the coffee cup to the sink. “Not now,” she told herself. “No more remembering. There’s too much to do today.”
Less than an hour later, she was unlocking the door to her high school classroom. It was easier to push her nightmare aside as she immersed herself in the day’s routine. The routine was one of the most comforting aspects of teaching. While her students weren’t always predictable, the schedule was. She could plunge herself into the events that comprised her life, the classes, the meetings, the extra-curricular activities, all the mundane anchors that gave her comfort in the face of a life that had become far from predictable. If she could just exorcise the ghosts of memory and regret with the holy water of routine, she would be fine.
“Lucy!” Katie sat bolt upright in bed, clutching her chest and calling her daughter’s name as a clap of thunder shattered the silence of her bedroom. Disoriented, she cast her eyes about the dark room, searching for her daughter before realizing she had been dreaming. Lucy was sound asleep in her room upstairs and hardly the teary-eyed toddler her mother had seen in her nightmare.
She fell back on her pillow with her chest aching and looked at the clock. 4:30 a.m. She still had over an hour before the alarm would ring, but she doubted sleep would return. Out of habit, she ran her hand over the crisp, cotton sheets on David’s side of the bed, searching for a husband who had been gone for nearly three years. She listened to the sound of thunder rumbling, quieter as the storm moved away. The rain beat a gentle rhythm on the roof and dripped from the gutters that were already overflowing with autumn leaves in spite of last week’s cleaning.
The rain continued steadily outside her window as gusts of wind picked up, whistling through the branches of the oak beside the drive and filling her with a feeling she struggled to name. Maybe it didn’t fill her at all. Maybe it emptied her instead.
Her breathing caught as she fought the tears that burned the back of her eyes as images of mornings like these spent with David flipped through her mind like the pages of an old photograph album. Her loneliness permeated the muscle and bone of her. She missed him with a quiet, suffocating need. She missed the sound of the water running in their bathroom as she rubbed the last vestiges of sleep from her eyes and began another day, and the sound of his paper rustling as she set the table for dinner. She missed the acutely masculine smells of his aftershave and his old leather jacket. She missed looking out the window and seeing him there, cutting the grass or working on some small project that had more to do with relaxation than repair. She missed a thousand little things that she had never stopped to value in the days when he was with her.
Katie sat up and threw off the quilt, thrusting her memories away. She stared at the clock, fluffed the pillow, tried lying in a different position, and finally gave up on the idea of getting a little more sleep. Rising wearily, she donned her faded, terry robe and wandered into the living room.
The sound of the wind, low and constant, made the house feel colder than it actually was. She pulled her robe tighter around her and sat down at the kitchen table with her laptop, trying to work on lesson plans for the next week, but her mind kept straying back to her dream of Lucy and, to chase that away, to old regrets and lost love.
Truth be told, she was ashamed of her sadness, ashamed of the beastly depression that lurked in the corners of her mind, ready to attack at the most unexpected moments. From the outside, she was quite certain that she appeared to have put her life back together after David’s death. She had worked hard to cultivate that façade. Katie had it all, she thought sarcastically – friends, family, money in the bank, a heart that wouldn’t quite heal, and Mark. Mark – there was another issue.
Where exactly did he fit into the picture that was her life? An occasional dinner? A cup of coffee before work? Drinks, a movie...a social calendar? It didn’t fill the void left by the absence of the husband she had adored. She longed for the stability of her life before the accident that had left her a widow, a single parent, labels she despised for the pity they evoked. And so she clung to her relationship with Mark, unwilling to relinquish the small security it afforded in exchange for the terror of being alone or another new start.
Thunder jarred Katie back to the task at hand. She checked the clock again. 5:15 a.m. “Close enough,” she thought, closing her computer and making her way toward the bathroom. “Time to get started.”
She was dressed in a grey pencil skirt and red sweater and back at the table having coffee by the time Lucy came down the stairs into the kitchen. “Somebody’s up early,” she said, kissing the top of her mother’s sleek, dark bob on the way to the cupboard for the cereal.
“Storm woke me up,” Katie lied. “What do you have going on today?”
“Killer day. I have cross-country after school assuming the rain stops and speech practice at 5:30. Is it OK if I stay in town at Kendra’s between?” Lucy asked as she grabbed the milk from the refrigerator, cereal from the cabinet, and a bowl and spoon from the dishwasher and flopped down in the oak chair across from her mother.
“You know I want you home for dinner, Luc,” Katie began.
“For the love of Pete, Mom, the world won’t stop turning if I eat a frozen pizza at Kendra’s instead of spaghetti here,” Lucy interrupted rolling her hazel eyes as she poured cereal and milk into her bowl. “I’m not planning to make a habit of it, but there’s only gonna be like an hour between. I’d no more than get here and choke down some food before I’d have to turn around and go back to town.”
Katie could hear the exasperation in her daughter’s voice. Lucy was right. Her schedule was tight and likely to get worse as her senior year progressed, but Katie selfishly wanted her only child at home. She wanted to cherish every single moment she had left with Lucy before graduation came. “Fine,” she conceded grudgingly, “as long as you don’t make it a habit.”
“Thanks, Moms,” Lucy said, flashing her deep-dimpled. “Spaghetti after the meet tomorrow, and if I’m not too tanked, I’ll even make the garlic bread. Cheesy, just like we like it,” she called as she headed upstairs, cereal bowl in hand.
Katie returned the milk and cereal to their proper place and took her coffee into the small sitting room that adjoined the kitchen. She sank into her favorite chair and gazed absently at the photos on the shelves that lined one wall of the cozy room and sighed deeply. Frame after frame captured the intimate moments of their life as a family. Lucy and David building a snowman. Lucy’s first Christmas. Lucy in silhouette at a Fourth of July cookout.
Katie could still see the moment in her mind as clearly as she could see it in the frame; Lucy was standing in the fading twilight in a baggy t-shirt with her ponytail slipping from its rubber band, waving a sparkler. The flag by the river’s edge had billowed in the breeze creating a perfect Fourth of July picture. Katie could have almost forgotten in that moment that her daughter was anything other than the little girl who had welcomed her mother into each new day with arms flung open wide and a sleepy smile. She had taken David’s hand and squeezed it tight. “She’s growing up so fast,” she had said.
As if she could hear her mother’s thoughts, Lucy had turned and flashed a smile before returning her attention to the white hot sparks that flew from her fingertips and David had snapped this photo of their then fourteen-year-old daughter. It was such a beautiful picture that she immediately had it enlarged and added it to the family gallery despite Lucy’s cries that she looked like “a little kid.”
Katie rose from her chair, shook her head to clear her mind of the memories, and carried the coffee cup to the sink. “Not now,” she told herself. “No more remembering. There’s too much to do today.”
Less than an hour later, she was unlocking the door to her high school classroom. It was easier to push her nightmare aside as she immersed herself in the day’s routine. The routine was one of the most comforting aspects of teaching. While her students weren’t always predictable, the schedule was. She could plunge herself into the events that comprised her life, the classes, the meetings, the extra-curricular activities, all the mundane anchors that gave her comfort in the face of a life that had become far from predictable. If she could just exorcise the ghosts of memory and regret with the holy water of routine, she would be fine.
What a beautiful memoir.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much. It is actually the first chapter of a novel that I am working on writing. I'm thrilled to read that you think it rings that true!
DeleteThis is awesome Cathy. I love your style and couldn't stop reading it, anxious to get to each new sentence!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the affirmation. I'm hoping to unravel the story a little at a time, so I hope you will come back to read more and share the blog with others who might enjoy it as well.
ReplyDeleteVery good...can't wait for chapter 2. does she stay with Mark? we shall see
ReplyDelete