Travelers Rest (2 page)

As she listened to the final strains of “Clair de Lune,” though, it was the voice of her mother that came back to her most clearly, breaking into the moment like the unwelcome twitch behind the eyes at the onset of a migraine.
“Honestly, Janie, you’re such a dreamer. Come back to earth and make yourself useful.”
How many times had she heard her mother say that?

But she wasn’t dreaming. Not now, nor even when she was a child gazing out the window at the yard. She was looking and listening, latching on to whatever passing beauty she might find, however briefly. A snatch of a symphony, the scent of lilac, the pale shimmer of the summer sun as it lay down at dusk on the green grass—all these were what gave her the courage simply to live.

And, at the moment, courage was what she needed more than anything.

Seth had told her not to come, but here she was. How could he expect her not to come, to just give up as though he’d died in that strange desert called Iraq? He hadn’t died. He was still alive. And she still loved him. Nothing changed that.

And so she had defied him, although he didn’t know it yet. Seth didn’t know she was here, listening to some unseen piano player and working up the nerve to ask him not to give up. Not on himself and not on her.

Jane opened her eyes and moved along the railing until the piano came into view. There it was, tucked up under the entryway where she’d been standing. A grand piano, it was shiny and sleek and somehow out of place in the midst of all the walking wounded, the vets both young and old, many of whom looked weary and dazed and shell-shocked, long months and even years after their final days in battle.

A tall young man was seated at the piano, his nimble fingers frolicking over the keys. Jane didn’t recognize what he was playing now—something much livelier than “Clair de Lune
.
” Something her grandmother wouldn’t have liked.
“Too common,”
Gram would have said.
“Something only the tone-deaf would appreciate.”
But the musician played it with such vigor and joy, Jane couldn’t help but smile. His face was turned away from her, but she could see the back of his blond head, the width of his broad shoulders beneath his suit jacket. Though he was dressed like a businessman, he was no doubt a veteran, like most everyone else here. He had probably served over in Iraq, or maybe Afghanistan, though he had obviously returned home whole and sound. Unlike Seth.

Seth Ballantine, her fiancé. Who lay in one of the rooms of this vast institution, unaware that she was on her way to see him.

Dear God, give me strength,
she thought. She was not one to pray, but there it was, a plea from the center of her soul to the God she hoped was listening.

She started down the long corridor, not at all sure she was headed in the right direction. She was about to pass a young man leaning up against the wall, sipping something hot from a Styrofoam cup, when she turned back and said, “Excuse me?”

“Yes?” He wore the maroon uniform of a hospital orderly, a name tag clipped to the breast pocket. He must know something about this place.

“Can you tell me where the spinal cord unit is?”

He raised a hand and pointed. “Straight ahead to the elevators, then up to the fifth floor.”

“Thank you.”

She moved through the hall to a trio of elevators, where she pushed the first available Up button. In another moment one pair of stainless steel doors slid open with a whoosh and a ding. She stepped into the elevator and pushed the button for the fifth floor.
I can still turn around and leave. He’ll never know I was here.

The doors closed and the lift ascended. The bell dinged again as the 5 light on the panel went off and the elevator jerked to a stop. The doors sighed open and Jane stepped out. She found herself on an L-shaped floor, with a nurses’ station located where the two wings met. A young nurse, about Jane’s own age, sat at the desk making notes on a chart.

“Excuse me,” Jane said hesitantly.

The nurse looked up and smiled. “Yes?”

“I’m looking for Seth Ballantine.”

“Oh yes.” She pointed toward one of the wings. “He’s in five-sixteen. Last room at the end of the hall on the right.”

“Thank you.”

She stepped lightly, not wanting to make a sound, as though she wasn’t there. As she walked she looked to the left and to the right, glancing briefly into each room as she passed. They were all singles, one narrow bed in each narrow room. One bedside table. One vinyl chair. One television suspended from the ceiling. And one broken body draped into a wheelchair or tucked between white linens on the bed.

She heard bits and snatches of daytime television; jagged edges of murmured conversations; people coughing; machines beeping, wheezing, clanging. And oddly, as though misplaced, a burst of laughter, two people sharing something amusing; she couldn’t imagine what, in a place like this.

Then quiet. A man stepped out of the room where the laughter had been. He was a tall man and commanding somehow, his shoulders back, his chin lifted slightly. His skin was the color of fertile ground, like the richest soil in her grandmother’s garden. He wore civilian clothing, pale slacks and a blue button-up shirt. He must be visiting someone, as he couldn’t be a patient here, not on this wing where people no longer walked. And walk he did, though hesitantly, as though his knees objected. When he and Jane came parallel to each other, he acknowledged her politely with a smile and a nod. She welcomed the gesture and returned the smile, wishing she could freeze the moment and memorize his gaze. Serene and warm, the eyes of this stranger were the kindest she had ever seen, and she drew a certain strength from them.

He nodded once more and moved on.

In another moment, Jane stood at the threshold of 516. She took one steadying breath and entered the room.

2

S
eth was awake and gazing out the window, unaware that anyone was there. In that brief interval Jane drank in his profile and felt the familiar rush of love. She’d known him almost all her life, and she’d known there was something special about him even when they were still children sitting in the same grade-school class. Their being together seemed inevitable, though it took him years to come to the same conclusion. But she was patient, and over time her waiting was rewarded. He’d asked her to marry him seven months before his National Guard unit was deployed to Iraq.

She quietly stepped closer. “Seth?”

His head rolled on the pillow, turning toward her. When his eyes met hers, his face registered confusion, surprise, delight, and finally anger, restrained but unmistakable.

She moved to his bed and touched the rails. “Hello, Seth.”

He turned away. “I told you not to come.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I couldn’t stay away.”

He didn’t respond.

Now that she was beside him, she could see how thin he looked. His once-full cheeks were sunken, and his jaw more pronounced. His too-large T-shirt accentuated his shrunken frame. Jane’s eyes traveled down his chest, over the splayed arms, the motionless fingers cradled on handrests, the lifeless legs extended under the sheet. Arms, hands, legs, feet—useless appendages now and for the past six months, ever since the sniper’s bullet hit him in the neck.

“You didn’t answer my letters,” she said.

“Yes, I did. I told you not to come. After that, there was nothing else to say.”

“Seth—”

“I mean it, Jane. I don’t want you here.”

She willed herself not to cry. “I don’t believe you,” she said.

He glanced at her, frowning. “What is it that you want?”

She touched the engagement ring she’d worn for more than a year now. “I want what I’ve always wanted. I want to be your wife.”

He laughed. It wasn’t at all like the happy laughter she’d heard coming from the other room a few minutes ago. “Right. Don’t you get it? Look at me. I’m paralyzed. I’m a quad. What about that don’t you understand?”

“I know all that. Of course I—”

“Listen, the ring is yours. Sell it and do something with the money. Take a trip. Go on a cruise. Forget about me, Jane. I’m not here for you anymore.”

She had to lift her head so that the tears didn’t roll down her face. If she could just take a moment to look out the window, just a moment to take a few deep breaths, she could get through this. She sniffed, cleared her throat. Finally she said, “I’ve been doing a lot of reading—you know, about people with spinal cord injuries. People still get married and some even have kids. I mean, lots of people go on and live good productive lives. Some even gain some movement—”

“Save it, Jane. Just stop.” He shut his eyes and shook his head. “Just stop.”

“I know you’re angry right now. That’s normal.”

“You can spare me the psycho-babble. Nothing’s normal. Nothing will ever be normal again. I’d rather have died than ended up like this.”

“Don’t say that, Seth.”

“Why not? Why not say the truth?”

She gave up then trying to hold back the tears. They wouldn’t be stopped. They coursed slowly down her cheeks, two salty lines.

She heard Seth sigh heavily, and when he spoke again his voice was quiet. “I’m sorry, Jane. God knows, I’m sorry for everything. I always knew I might not come back alive, but I never dreamed I’d come back like this. This isn’t what I want for you. I want you to have a real marriage, to be happy—”

“But I
would
be happy.
We
would be happy. I know it.”

“No, Jane. Forget it. For your own sake, find someone else to marry and forget about me. I mean it. That’s what I want.”

As her breath quickened, Jane turned the diamond round and round on her finger. “I don’t want to find someone else to marry. I still love you, Seth.”

He swallowed. She watched his Adam’s apple travel up and down the length of his throat. There was a scar there now, near the hollow of his neck, from the ventilator that had breathed for him while he was still in the hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. He’d been weaned off of it, which meant he had improved. Who knew what other improvements he might make? She was a patient person; she was willing to wait and see.

Very slowly, as though talking to a child, Seth said, “I’m going to close my eyes and rest now. When I open my eyes again, I want you to be gone. Go back to Troy, Jane. Go back and make a life with someone else. I don’t want you coming back here.”

She gazed at his face, the face she knew so well and had loved so long. She wanted to reach out her hand and touch his cheek, his brow, but she didn’t dare. His eyes were closed; she had been dismissed.

“Seth,” she said, “just do one thing for me. Tell me you don’t love me anymore. Tell me that, and then I’ll go away.”

His eyelids trembled and his jaw tightened, but he didn’t speak.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said.

She saw the tear that slid down the side of his face. She turned to go without brushing it away.

3

P
ritchard Park was a small triangular oasis situated near the center of downtown Asheville. The park, like the city itself, was no respecter of persons. All were drawn to it at one time or another—the locals, the tourists, the wealthy, the homeless, young Goths, aging hippies, radical intellectuals, raging alcoholics, lovers, the lonely, families, drifters, and dreamers. They all came and sat in the shade of its few scattered trees, settling themselves on the benches or the natural boulders, or on the concrete tiers that dropped down toward the bricked center square that, on Friday nights when the weather was warm, served as a dance floor for those inspired to motion by the synchronized drumming.

Jane sat on the sun-warmed concrete facing the tier where several dozen people sat beating out a rhythm on bongo drums and conga heads. Others tapped out the tempo using wooden claves, while still others added an unobtrusive backup with shakers and cowbells. On and on it went, the rhythm played over and over, with seemingly no beginning and apparently no end. The dance floor was crowded with men, women, and children in a vast array of dress and undress, swaying, jumping, gyrating, and spinning, as though even the fairest of them had roots that ran deep into an ancient tribal culture. One man with dreadlocks down to his waist managed a series of improbable somersaults and back flips, then grabbed a partner and joined her in a dizzying array of staccato-like dance steps. Jane watched in amazement, only vaguely aware that her right foot tapped along with the rhythm. The drumming had a hypnotic pull that lulled the listener in and took her to places unknown, just as the tug of the ocean might carry a swimmer out to sea.

“They say it helps connect them with the universal mind, or some such thing.”

Jane turned toward the voice. “Diana! How long have you been here?”

“Just got here. Sorry I’m late.” Diana spoke loudly over the drumming and squinted momentarily against the sun as she sat down on the tier beside Jane. “I got caught in a very long and very tedious staff meeting about grants for the biology department next year.” She gazed skyward in a gesture of disgust, her brown eyes looking weary behind the rectangular lenses of her dark-framed glasses. Her auburn hair was cropped short in a no-nonsense style, as though outward appearance was a frivolous time waster if one was a tenured professor.

“That’s all right,” Jane assured her. Glancing at her watch, she added, “Is it seven thirty already? Wow, I lost track of the time. I’m afraid I got kind of swept up in the drumming.”

Diana nodded. “That’s the point, I think. You’re supposed to let it carry you off into the cosmic consciousness.” She paused and smiled. “It boggles my scientific mind, but it’s fun to watch. They all seem to be enjoying themselves.”

Jane looked out over the crowd, then back at her friend. “Where’s Carl?”

“Grading term papers.”

“On a Friday night?”

“You know Carl. Work, work, work. He won’t be able to leave for Europe next week unless he has all his ducks lined up in a row, feathers all fluffed and shiny. But he sends his apologies for skipping out on dinner tonight.”