Eternal Journey (8 page)

She felt Stacey’s eyes on her again as she got into the Explorer, but when she looked over to wave good-bye, Stacey was busy
reading what Anna had inscribed in her book.

Take good care of yourself and Beth,
she had written.
She needs her mother—now and always. Godspeed, Anna Carroll.

Anna drove up Main Street, the tears trickling down her cheeks meeting the smile that was beginning to form.

The phone was ringing as she opened the back door of the house. Without thinking, she picked it up, instantly regretting the
reflexive action. Regret turned to relief when she recognized Chris’s voice and figured he was checking up on her.

“I know I promised I wouldn’t call, but Charly insisted,” he said. “You know what a little worrier she can be.”

“Sure, go ahead, big guy. Blame it on a ten-year-old. Why can’t you just admit you were too curious to leave me alone?” Anna
replied with a smile.

“No really, Annie, it was Charly’s idea. Here, talk to her.”

“Hi honey,” Anna said as she filled the kettle with water. “So what’s going on down there?”

“Well, Annie, Dad said that maybe you were lonely and we should check up on you. It’s been a boring weekend here, although
Dad did finally get Rollerblades, and we went skating down Ocean Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Dad was the oldest guy on skates
and he did pretty good.” Anna heard Chris groan.

“Well, I’m doing fine here, Charly, and I appreciate your concern. Let me talk to your dad again, will you?”

Charly’s little voice dropped to a whisper, “I wasn’t worried about you, Annie, but you know Dad.”

Anna smiled as Chris got back on the line. “So Charly was concerned, huh?” she teased him. “Why can’t you just say what’s
on your mind? And, honestly, Chris, Rollerblading at fifty! What are you trying to prove? Haven’t you spent enough money on
those knees of yours by now?”

“It was worth it, Annie. Charly had a great time.”

Chris had been divorced for five years now, and the wounds were still raw. The marriage had been a good one until his consulting
business took off. It was hard to say whether success changed him, or whether all the nights and weeks away drained the soul
from that union, but Anna felt it was one of the saddest endings she had known. He had seen her through a few failed relationships
as well, and had been her mainstay many years earlier when she herself divorced. Do success and self-fulfillment have to come
at such a price? Is it possible for two bright, evolving, talented, and ambitious people to sustain the journey through life
together, each optimizing the gifts he or she had been bestowed with? Anna and Chris had spent more than a few hours discussing
and debating those very questions over the years. Since his divorce, however, their conversations had become less philosophical
and more and more personal. The relationship took on yet another dimension, one that was never discussed but was increasingly
present.

The loud whistle of the teakettle summoned her.

As Anna poured boiling water into the Thermos, fine dust from the low-cal hot chocolate mix wafted up and triggered a sneeze.

“You’re not catching cold, are you Annie?”

“I’m fine, Chris,” she said, smiling again at his not too subtle attempt to hide his concern about her. “In fact, I’m on my
way out to Menemsha to watch the sunset. It was raining this morning, but the sun is out now. And, yes, it’s cold. I’ll tell
you all about it next week. When are you back in town?”

“I should be back by Wednesday. Let’s have lunch on Thursday. The agent called about the book, and I told her we’d have a
proposal ready by the first of the month. Hope that’s okay with you.”

“I really haven’t thought about it, Chris. When is the first of the month?” she asked as she scanned the kitchen for a calendar.

“Annie, it’s ten days from now,” he said with a slight note of impatience in his voice.

She heard the irritated “Get a grip” tone in his voice, but after the strange though wonderful day she’d had, her mind wasn’t
really focusing on work.

“We’ll talk about it on Thursday, Chris. Thanks again for calling. Bye!”

The hot chocolate made, Anna ran upstairs to change those sandy socks and put on a warmer sweater. She had glanced at the
tide table and noted that sunset was at 4:28. It was three-thirty now, and she realized the timing couldn’t have been better
if she had planned it.

Anna had to put down the visors on both the driver and passenger sides of the Explorer as she drove into the setting sun to
the little fishing village of Menemsha. Some of the most beautiful sunsets in the world could be savored from this remote
little town. The place absolutely bustled in the summer, with fresh fish trading hands almost as soon as it was caught and
cleaned. The little fish markets that lined the pier sold and prepared the best fish Anna had ever eaten. She figured if she
were that impressed, then the place truly was the best, because she enjoyed fresh catch from the Florida Keys year-round.
If it wasn’t from those crystal blue waters of the Florida straits, she was eating the day’s catch from places such as Sebastian
and Stuart, the not-so-well-kept secrets of Florida’s Treasure Coast. Always partial to shellfish, especially lobster and
clams, she was certain you could find no better than the catch of the day brought into Menemsha.

The sunsets here were always spectacular, the purple and scarlet “sailors’ sky” caressing the horizon, providing a vivid backdrop
to the few tugs and fishing boats remaining on the rippling water, which lapped gently against the rocky, craggy shore. A
finer study in contrasts could not be found.

But there would be no fish, let alone activity, today, she thought as she turned onto the North Road and began to drive across
the rolling hills through Chilmark. Arriving at the village at 3:55, she drove the Explorer to the edge of the beach and noticed
the lone truck that had preceded her. A woman with nearly luminescent white hair stood at the foot of the jetty with two young
children—a girl and boy dressed in identical bright blue windbreakers trying in vain to chase down several seagulls attempting
to perch nearby. The children appeared to be oblivious to the wind and cold. As the woman turned and waved to Anna, a ray
of the setting sun glistened through her hair, creating a glow so bright that Anna blinked. Anna smiled and waved back. Even
off-season visitors are friendly, she thought. She turned off the engine and got out of the Explorer.

The wind whipped across her face, so cold it almost smarted. Anna had trouble connecting the two ends of the zipper to her
parka, so she turned her back to the wind. She put up the hood of her parka and pulled the little strings so that her face
was partially protected. The sun was a brilliant red and barely kissing the horizon as Anna again turned toward the beach.
In the glow of the sunset, she caught a glimpse of the now-familiar man pedaling his bike toward her.

He pulled up next to the Explorer and joined her as she braced herself against the wind.

“I knew you’d be here,” he said, “so I thought I’d join you, if you don’t mind.”

Together they braved the elements, struggling to reach the water’s edge. “It’s just too windy and cold out here,” she said,
then reversed direction and scurried toward her vehicle with him following. She hoped he could hear her over the howl of the
wind. “Come join me inside where it’s warm,” she said, hopping behind the wheel.

Once inside the Explorer, Anna turned on the engine so she could get the heat running and stop shivering. The two of them
watched the sun in its final moments, a red ball slipping slowly into the sea.

“Endings and beginnings,” Anna said aloud as she looked over at her companion, “that’s really what life is all about, don’t
you think?”

Those comforting eyes looked back at her, and he nodded and said, “Yes, but it’s really what happens between the two that
makes a life meaningful. There really is only the moment, Annie, a perpetual now, if you know what I mean. So many people
go through life focused on the openings and closings, goals and accomplishments, they miss the whole point of being here.
We all have lessons to learn, Annie, and only a set amount of time in which to learn them. It could be five years, forty years,
or eighty-nine years. Just look at what you’ve learned today since sunrise. In just one day, you’ve reviewed much of your
past, and given yourself permission to feel both the joy and the pain of the connections in your life, and you’ve actually
made some new ones—connections, I mean.”

Playing with the steering wheel, Anna said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about the transitions we have to make in life, not just
following abrupt, unwelcome change, but the every-day, every-week adjustments that gradually remold us into the evolving adults
we become. We really are just ‘works-in-progress,’ aren’t we?

“So many of my clients,” she continued, “come to me suffering from stress or burnout, really flip sides of the same coin,
but they resist taking any time to reflect and focus because they are afraid of the view. I realized today that in my own
way I’ve been doing the same thing. I never stopped after my own surgery. I continued writing, speaking, actually increasing
my workload in the months before Beth died. In a way, the busyness dulled my pain.

“Even those last weeks when Beth and the girls, and then Tom, were in my river house, I kept working. I only stayed with her
for her final two days. I wasn’t consciously avoiding being there, and Beth wanted me to go about my business as much as I
could. I felt it best she have the most time with her husband and her girls. But today I realized I never really got to say
good-bye to her. All the memories of a lifetime, and we never got to review them together.”

She looked over to him, somewhat surprised at what she had just heard herself say.

The lights went on in the truck parked next to her, startling both of them. It was dark now; the moment had passed. The ending
of the day was gone in a brilliant blaze of light.

“I still have places I need to get to tonight, and people I need to see,” he said. “Could you drop me at Beetlebung Corner
on your way back?”

“Sure.” Anna got out of the Explorer to help him with the bike, but it was already on the roof of the vehicle before she could
reach the other side.

He was silent as Anna drove along the unlit road connecting the two sides of the island. She didn’t want to interrupt his
thoughts, especially after he had been so respectful of hers. As if he were reading her mind, he turned to her and said, “Maybe
it would help you to write down how you feel about what happened today, Annie. It used to work for me.”

She was quiet as they continued along the dark road. “I think I’ll write a letter to Beth,” Anna said as she pulled up in
front of the old church at Beetle-bung Corner. “Are you sure you’ll be all right out here? It’s very dark,” she said, noting
for the first time that his clothes were an odd shade of blue and didn’t look too warm.

“I’ll be just fine, Annie, and I think the letter is a good idea. It may seem strange at first, but trust me, it helps. I
hope I will see you tomorrow before you leave, but, if I don’t, it only means I ran out of time.”

“Thanks for listening,” she said, and he had closed the door before she realized she again had forgotten to get his name.
She thought it was strange that he seemed to be aware of her plans, since she didn’t remember saying anything to him about
when she planned to leave the island.

As she pulled into the drive, she silently swore at herself for not thinking to leave any lights on. She flipped on the Explorer’s
high beams and shined them on the back door. As she reached inside the kitchen door for the switch, she noticed that there
were no lights on at the Duffys’ either.

Once the kitchen was illuminated, she turned off the Explorer’s lights and gladly retreated to the house. Looking at the clock,
she saw it was a little past seven o’clock. Suddenly, as if the time gave her permission, she realized she was ravenous. But
she was also feeling quite sandy, so the shower came first.

Anna stood in the huge, glass-enclosed shower and let the hot water beat onto her back. She turned very slowly, slid down
the wall, wrapped her arms around her legs, turned her face toward the pulsating stream, and began to contemplate the day.
Anna had always concealed or camouflaged her deepest pain, keeping it very private. As she reflected on the day, tears filled
her eyes, then dropped, becoming one with the water streaming down her face. Anna sat weeping under the waterfall, wondering
how many people retreated to a shower stall hoping the warm water would wash away their pain.

Why is it that we only let go in private? Why are we so afraid of going public with our pain? she wondered as she stood and
turned off the faucet.

Anna had spent years helping her male clients connect with their feelings, and working with women to understand theirs. She
found men and women to be different in so many ways but so similar when it came to the important things. After all these years,
Anna had come to the conclusion that we are all just struggling souls stuck in these funny-looking physical forms, trying
desperately to make some sense of it all. That is, those who allow themselves to think about or question the meaning of life,
let alone death. Thinking back to earlier in the day, she remembered how the stranger had wept along with her as she exposed
her soul. He had touched her heart in a way that no one ever had. Who is he? she pondered, drying herself with the big white
towel.

The bathroom had more mirrors in it than Anna had in both of her houses combined. Staring at her reflection in this room of
mirrors, all Anna could see were her three scars. She had two barely visible incisions, one on each breast, while the fiery
pink “bikini” line was just starting to fade. These scars, like pain, were permanently etched into her body, yet expertly
concealed from view.

Anna knew all too much about cancer. She had been through the drill more than once, undergoing mammograms yearly since her
early thirties. Her first breast biopsy was the hardest, and that scar was the longest. Kind of fitting in an odd way, Anna
felt. She was too young, she had thought at the time, to be dealing with this. She remembered how her sweaty hands had trembled
as she sat in the sur-geon’s office listening to his litany of cancer statistics and treatment options. The experience had
left her shaken to the core.