A Symphony of Cicadas (31 page)

“You’re kidding.”

“No!” Sara insisted
.
“I remember thinking that was so unlike her
.
The few dates she had gone on before she met you, she
saw as dead-ends
.
Eventual
ly
she just gave up dating altogether, finding it easier to take care of Joey and focus on the shop than, in her words, ‘deluding herself that any man could be anything more than disappointing.’  So to hear her tell me that you were the one, after on
ly
having just met you
…  Let’s just say I was both delighted by her hopefulness and fearful that she was about to get her heart total
ly
ripped to shreds
.”
She smiled at the memory of her sister in those ear
ly
days of love
.
“I don’t believe in soul mates, John. But when I was witness to the beginning of my
sister’s relationship with you, seeing how it grew so pure
ly
out of just a chance meeting, even I had to re-evaluate how I perceived the idea of love at first sight
.
You two were meant for each other, and you made her final years on earth the happiest she ever had.”

“I guess everything happens for a reason,” John mused
.
“If it hadn’t been for a forgetful friend, I never would have met her
.”
He paused at the thought, remembering how that meeting had led to a night of dancing at the wedding, the first of many consecutive days and nights we spent talking to each other, getting to know each other, and when we weren’t together, thinking about each other
.
But his thoughts darkened at the loss that followed a life that
had
promised so much happiness
.
“Or maybe it was a mistake
.
If I hadn’t been in here that day, I never would have known what it feels like to lose her.”

“And you never would have known what it felt like to love her, either,” Sara
pointed out.
The tears he had worked so hard to keep at bay broke free and ran down his cheeks in sheltered sobs
.
He tried not to let it all go, but when the first sob shuddered through him, the rest barreled down and bowled him over in unbridled sorrow.

I watched
with
compassion as everything he had kept so close to his chest was
now
pouring out of him
.
He held no power to stop it either
.
He was healing as he mourned
, enveloping the whole section of the world
where
we
were
with the strength of his emotion
.
They couldn’t feel it, of course, but I experienced every teardrop as a tiny ocean of
hope, the breaking of his heart allowing the past to
break free
and make room for whatever the future held.

And I was suffocating him.

By
indulging
my selfish need to be close to him
even
as he grieved, I was making it impossible for him to let me go
.
I
hadn’t
th
ought
I would ever be able to walk away, that if I did it
would
mean I didn’t love him enough
.
But I was beginning to believe I was ready to leave, that I could move
on
and leave behind all I loved in this world
. John
was taking the first real steps toward doing the same
.
I also saw
, for the first time,
that leaving him was an act of love in its own way.

“I’m sorry I came here,” John whispered when the tears allowed words to form once more.

“I’m not,” Sara said
.
“I think you needed this more than you know
.”
He nodded in quiet agreement, raw from allowing himself
permission
to break
.
He turned to her with a sad smile.

“And you, are you going to be
okay?
” he asked her. “I mean, I know you’ve been the strong one here by being firm that this…thing…won’t work
.
But raising the girls all by yourself and everything…
” he trailed off
.
“
Will you be
okay?
”  She smiled at him, breaking into a grin of happiness she couldn’t contain.

“Actual
ly
, Kevin has come back home
.
We’re starting to put our marriage back together
.
And so far, it’s working,” she
told him
, her eyes filled with hope
.

“Oh g
od,” John stammered
.
“But we…  Does he know about us?”

“Yes,” Sara confirmed
.
John’s eyes widened at the complications that presented, but Sara waved her hand as she finished the thought
.
“I mean, no
.
He knows that I had an indiscretion while we were apart, but not that it was you
.
We both made our fair share of mistakes during our time
apart
from each other, and all we can do is forgive them
,
understanding we didn’t know what the future held.”

“And are things better?” John asked her.

“They’ve never been so good,” Sara breathed with relief.

In the past few months, she was introduced to a part of her husband she never knew
.
He was proactive in being a parent to the girls,
which she assumed was
a result of his months as a single father with no other parent to lean on
.
He helped out around the house, even surprising Sara that he knew how to cook a meal or two
.
And he was more attentive to Sara and her needs, reading her like a book and keeping himself open to communication
.
She was falling love with Kevin all over again.

“How about you?” she asked
.
“Are you going to be
okay?
  Do I need to call someone, or anything?” He gave a light chuckle in response, staring
at
the street in quiet reflection
.
The city never slept, but it was beginning to rouse from its sedated state of morning
peace
–
the
cars starting to pass by with more frequency
,
as was
the
increasing
number of people pounding the pavement
.
Not
one of them noticed Sara and John huddled off to the side.

Sometimes it
is
good to be invisible.

John
took in the details
of
the green grass that poked through the cracks in the sidewalk, the black of the tar on the
wooden light post in front of them, the contrast of the colors in a small square f
ly
er boasting of the carnival that was coming in a couple months
.
And he breathed in the smell of San Francisco, a mixture of the foggy air with a slight hint of fish from their close proximity to the wharf
.
He turned to Sara and smiled.

“I’m going to be just fine,” he sa
id
.
And for the first time, he
believed it.

Twenty-three

I
spent the last few moments of my time on earth
memorizing
everything and everyone I ever loved in life, taking a full
six
months of human time to say my goodbyes before I was gone forever
.
I danced on the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge, running up the rusty orange rails toward the top of the towers and taking a long look at the expanse of the bay
.
I climbed into the trees on Telegraph Hill, letting the parrots that lived within the branches project their colorful thoughts back and forth from their head to mine and back again
.
I ran the bases at AT&T Park at the same time as Chewy Mendez, this year’s favorite San Francisco baseball player
.
I even pretended the crowd was cheering for me as we both rounded third base and slid into home
.
I visited old clients I adored, my son’s former third grade teacher, and the young gal who made my
latte
every morning
at the coffee shop
. Even my mailman received a momentary sojourn, a brief glimpse into his house while he served dinner to his fami
ly
, just because I could.

I asked Aunt Rose to accompany me on all of these visits,
in part
so that I had someone with me on this side of the world, but
also
to keep me from changing my mind
.
These were my goodbyes
.
I wanted to make sure that I was clear on
my intent, that nothing in this world altered my resolve to find peace in closure and leave it all behind
.
But I also wanted to make sure that I had one last memory of every part of the world I cherished, something I could hold onto once I had crossed over from this world to the next.

If Aunt Rose disagreed with what I was doing, she never let on
.
Instead, she
hid
in the corners of every place I visited, and
melted into
the shadows of every person I bid farewell
.
She
didn’t speak
to me, on
ly
offering comfort through her presence.

And I found the exercise cathartic
.
I started out easy, breezing through parts of my life that were once forgotten, coming to terms with loose ends and people who had slipped from my life
.
I checked in on old high school friends I had lost touch with, saw each of them in a different phase of life
.
Some had kids, some were divorced, and at least one of them made it big by becoming a rock star just as he swore he would in high school
.
I discovered my cat, who had escaped from our apartment a few months before my death, living in the apartment of Mrs. Rhodes down the hall. I laughed when he saw me, floating near him as a light in the air
.
And he knew it was me.

“Damn Mrs. Rhodes,” I laughed, remembering how she had seemed so concerned when I came to her door with a photo of him, swearing she hadn’t seen him but would keep her eye out for him
.
All that time, Pepper had been in her house
.
“Good for you, Pepper,” I told him, glad that he was at least well-loved in his new home even if he had betrayed me in his abandonment.

I traveled to Sebastopol to visit Sam in his mother’s town
.
I watched him as he moved
with ease
among his friends, an air of
confidence
unmistakable
around him as he joked with those who looked up to him
.
He was different than I once knew him.
We were so unfamiliar with each other in life, our defenses still strong
as we became accustomed to living
under the same roof
.
There was so much I didn’t know about him in life that I now knew about him in death
.
My regret with Sam w
as
that I never got to experience the other side of being his stepmom, moving beyond our initial awkwardness to a place where we showed how much we cared
.
I
sent
him
a silent
farewell
from my world to his, taking comfort from
knowing he
really
had cared
.

I visited
Joey’s dad,
Tony
,
exploring
a part of my life I thought I’d never want to see again
.
My heart softened for him when I found him, living in a drug-induced stupor that seemed to be a permanent thing these days
.
He was the on
ly
one who lived in his home, the place trashed with beer cans and a sink full of dishes
.
The whole place smelled of old booze and cigarettes
.
He didn’t have much, but what he did have was worn out and old
.
However, one thing shone out among the piles of dirt and junk, and that was a photo of all three of us on his shelf
.
Tony had his arm around me in the picture, holding me up as I held Joey in my arms
.
My face was unsure, a hint of hope flushed in my cheeks
.
It was when Joey was on
ly
a few weeks old, when Tony had reappeared
for just a moment
to check in and see how we were doing, and
, in an out-of-character move, hand
me a
wad of cash to help out with some expenses
.
He’d on
ly
stuck around for a few days, more than I had expected of him even then
.
I had forgotten about the photo until now, wh
ich
he had asked a random guy on the street to take as if we were tourists instead of
a local broken
-
up fami
ly
.
The moment was captured f
orever, now sitting on his book
shelf
that held
no books, us as a fami
ly
for the last time in our lives with a backdrop of pork b
uns in a store window in Chinat
own.

And next to the photo was our obituary.

The visit to my parents’ house in Sonoma was the one that worried me the most, and I begged Aunt Rose to stay close to ensure I wouldn’t fold
.
She nodded, holding my hand in silent support as we manifested to the home
where
I had
grown up
.

My mother was in the garden when I arrived, her hands deep in the dirt as she took advantage of the late afternoon sun
.
She was planting bulbs, a pile of them near her as she took her time digging six inch holes and placing a bulb in each one, covering them over with dirt and patting it down so they could sleep through the winter
.
Nearby, a Japanese
maple
I’d never seen before shone in red and gold
.
She glanced over at it when the last bulb was planted, offering a silent prayer
.

“I miss you, sweet Rachel.”

It was all she said, but it spoke volumes
.
I understood that this was her way of keeping me close, that the tree was her offering to me and a beacon of hope for her
.
I had on
ly
visited her a handful of times in my death, but somehow she never looked as love
ly
or as young as she did in this
moment
.
I memorized how the sun shone through her hair, casting a golden glow through the silver that now stood as the prominent hue
.
I traveled along
her
laugh lines, creases that
made up an older version
of my own face when I was human, and proof of a life filled with laughter
.
I captured the blue of her eyes, painting my dress the exact same shade so that I couldn’t forget the warmth of indigo that had smiled upon me at every stage of my life
.
I watched her hands as
she
worked, noticing the signs of age both
in
weathered skin and
in
age spots that hid among patches of dirt
.
I held
onto
Aunt Rose
as I watched my mother’s hands,
feeling cautious as I
long
ed
for the time when I was once cared for by those hands.

“It’s
okay
to feel,” Aunt Rose said, giving me permission in my goodbye to grieve
.
“I’ve got you
.”
And I cried as the memories of a real
ly
wonderful childhood flashed in front of me like slides to a moving picture show, scenes of my life passing me by
.
There was the time my father took Sara and me to the dump in his truck, all the windows rolled down and the radio turned up as we enjoyed being my father’s honorary sons for the day
.
There were all the times my mom rolled up her sleeves to teach us the art of baking bread, or how to outline the pictures we were coloring before filling them in with a lighter shade
.
The hills behind our house became the road of connection with our father, the hikes he took us on as teenagers serving as magical bridges when we couldn’t see eye to eye.

On this late afternoon, my father came out to join my mother, handing her a cup of ice water and inviting her to
take a break
.
And the
four
of us stayed out there until the sun went down and cast a shadow over their bit of land in
Sonoma
. My father held
my mom’s
hand, a gesture I had taken for granted in all my years of life
.
I never took the time to notice how in love they were, even after years of marriage
.
I may have
never
been able
to experience that kind of love in a marriage to John,
but
I got to be a part of it through my parents
– two people
who had served as an example of what a
true
partnership looked like.

The sky took on a purplish hue, the moon appearing over the ridge in magnified brilliance
.
It was why
our hometown of
Sonoma
was referred to
as
the Valley of the Moon, the magical way the moon appeared larger than life when it first rose,
before shrinking to a more demure orb
.
My parents stood up to go inside
.
But I stayed where I was, watching them walk awa
y for the very last time
.
W
hen they closed the door, Aunt Rose and I were already gone.

Sara’s h
ouse was a tornado of happiness -
a naked Li
ly
running to avoid bath time with a fit of giggles while Kevin and Sara worked to corner her, and Megan
, in hysterics,
who
was doing
her best to help her fleeing sister
.
When Kevi
n
was able to
capture the
wriggling
four
-
year
-
old, she squealed and twisted in his arms, not ready for the game to be over
.
To her delight and her parents’ dismay, it continued in a flurry of tidal waves and bubbles once she entered the bathtub
.
I left with this memory, the four of them as a fami
ly
, on
ly
Sara and I aware that the number would g
row by one more in nine
months’ time
.
But I was the on
ly
one who knew that this one would be a boy.

I saved John for last
.
I wanted his to be the last human face I saw before I took off
.
It was on
ly
fitting that he was at the carnival
in Santa Cruz
with Sam
.
It
seemed like ages
since Jane and I were here
,
not just the
two and a half years
that had passed
.
I felt like
I
was
a different person back then, amazed that the effect
s
of time were still able to touch those of us in the afterlife.