Chapter
Pictured in the black and white postcard, a leggy blond leaned into the driver side of a beat up pickup truck. Its license plate read “Taos.” Jerry flipped the postcard over: Hey Jerry, Your soul mate lives in Taos! Although it was unsigned, with its Soquel, California postmark, Jerry knew who sent it.
Sean was a retired Methodist minister Jerry had met at the “Who I Am, I Must Become” workshop. While they were lunching, Sean pulled out of his pocket a crinkled old post card of his church in Soquel, California.
“We’re celebrating our centennial,” he said. “My father preached here. Now I do. Life is poetic, don’t you think?”
“Then my life is a haiku,” said Jerry.
Sean about spit out his teeth.
“My wife passed away last year,” he continued. “We were married 41 years. I was just back from the war, and my parents set me up on a blind date. I picked her up in my Chevy, and she slid right over next to me. We had a great time at the movie, and we stayed up talking for hours. I married her three months later. She was my soul mate. It was meant to be. Have you met yours?”
“No.”
“Well, you will.”
Jerry smiled as he recalled their conversation. He tossed the postcard onto his kitchen table and headed off to work.
When he got to the Salal Cafe, parked in front was a muddied Land Rover sporting a bumper sticker: “I ❤️Taos.”
Hmmm.
After work, Jerry headed off to the library to do some research. He found a New York Times travel piece that described Taos as a favorite ski spot in New Mexico, a haven for hippies and artists and the location of an energy vortex. Say what? “Vortexes are areas of high energy concentrations, originating from magnetic, spiritual, or sometimes unknown sources. Additionally they are considered to be gateways or portals to other realms, both spiritual and dimensional.”
Hmmm.
* * *
Jerry threw his duffle bag into the car, piled in and headed southeast out of Port Townsend, Washington. Pouring out of his self-installed, beefed up sound system, Beethoven’s Fifth rended the heavens asunder. Prairie lands spread out before him with the snow capped Cascades in the distance.
When he could drive no longer, he pulled off the highway and parked next to a corn field. He got out to stretch his legs. The quiet was palpable. A chill clung to him. He peed and hustled back into his car.
From the northern horizon, a green fluorescent curtain undulated across the sky. He stumbled back out of his car to get a better look. From the zenith, shafts colored marigold, rose and daffodil shot forth in all directions. Jerry’s jaw dropped. He was mesmerized. It must be a sign from God telling him he’s on the right track.
He was nervous about this mystic journey. Until recently, his life had been all planned out: college, seminary, ordination. All he had to do was execute. His future looked bright. He had a fat Presbyterian pension ahead. Only one thing missing: God.
Now he was off that road, determined to find Him, guided forward by nothing more than a hunch. Was this living by faith? Were signs like these Northern Lights God’s way of communicating for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see?
He was excited and scared. How alive he felt, how energized. Maybe he really would find his soul mate in Taos.
Still, another part of him considered this trip a fool’s errand and couldn’t wait to tell him so when he came up empty, and then admonish him to get back on that sensible path.
He climbed back into his primordial cave. Sleep came quickly, and when he awoke, the sun, peeking above the horizon, cast a golden glow on a field of bleached corn stalks. Frost sparkled on the hood.
It took a few minutes to get the feeling back into his right side, but shortly, he was back on the highway getting warmed up by the car heater.
As day turned to night, the two lane road contracted into one. It wended its way higher and higher up onto the mesa. Jerry’s internal alarm blared: Danger, danger!
He entered Taos and parked beside a plaza. Unfolding himself gingerly out of the car, he straightened up. If there was an energy vortex here, he sure didn’t feel it. Peering into the dark, he made out a run-down hardware store, a market and an art gallery. The lights were on at the Alley Cantina. He wandered in. Its TV screens were all tuned into the sixth game of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets.
Jerry approached the only table that wasn’t transfixed on the game.
“I’m looking for my soul mate. Have you seen her?” he asked with a straight face.
An impressive number of martini glasses accessorized the table.
“Soul mate, shmole mate, sit down stranger, you’ll do,” said the woman nearest him. The other two women cackled. Jerry took a seat.
“I don’t believe in any of that crap,” she said. “Here have a drink. It’s on my husband’s, I mean, my ex-husband’s credit card. We’re celebrating my divorce. Even a therapist couldn’t make it work. And I’m a good one too. I’ve helped a lot of women out of abusive relationships.”
Her multicolored friendship bracelets slid down her tanned forearm as she dangled a martini glass toward a waiter. “Doreen, you’ve got to listen to Ramtha. He really helped me through this.”
“Toni, I’m totally into channeling,” said Doreen. “I’m doing the workbook for A Course in Miracles. It’s 365 lessons, one for each day, and, at the end of it, you achieve happiness. Did you try these stuffed mushrooms? They are to die for.”
“I smudged my home,” said Toni. “Burned up half a bundle. White sage, the good stuff. Finally, I can breathe again.”
Jerry jumped in. “So, do any of you believe in God?”
The conversation needle scratched to a stop.
“That word, just that word, makes me angry,” Toni said. “I was raised Catholic, and that messed me up good, so I found my higher power on my own.”
“But do you have a personal relationship with your higher power?” Jerry asked.
Toni handed the waiter her empty glass and nodded towards Jerry.
“Sparkling water, thanks.”
“When I sit after yoga, I feel the Om. It’s intense. I feel Her presence; I feel her compassion,” said Toni.
“Can you channel Her?” Doreen asked.
“No. I don’t hear words.”
“You’re not going to believe this,” said the third woman, silent until now. She patted her lips with her napkin. “I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness. When I started living with my boyfriend all hell broke loose. The leaders banned me from the fold; I was excommunicated. They forbid my parents to speak with me. I missed Mom so much, and she missed me. We started having secret rendezvous’s. Can you believe it? A secret rendezvous with your mom? I was done with that church. Now, I’m a seeker. That’s why I’m in Taos.”
“That’s insane, Bobbi” said Toni. “I can’t believe we haven’t talked about this. I was raised a Moonie. My parents act like children. They don’t have a mind of their own. They do whatever Rev. Moon proclaims. I got out. My parents aren’t supposed to speak to me either.”
“Yeah, I have some serious issues with my parents too,” said Jerry. “But, you know, Jesus said you have to hate your mother and your father in order to be his disciple, so maybe we’re all being shoved in the right direction, I mean, to be closer to God.”
“What?” asked Toni. The bar had turned raucous as a ground ball squirted through a first baseman’s legs.
“GOD ISN’T DEAD!” yelled Jerry into the now quiet bar. Everybody turned to see who said so. Jerry felt his cheeks burn. He smiled coyly and waved. “Anyway I’m going to Jerusalem to find Him.”
They all looked at him nonplussed.
“Like Israel?” Toni asked.
“Right,” said Jerry. “I had an inspiration last Christmas. If I wanted to find God, go to Jerusalem at Christmas.”
“Don’t you mean Bethlehem?” asked Bobbi.
“That’s what my Dad said,” said Jerry glumly. “I only know what I heard and that’s what I heard.”
Toni suddenly stood up. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.
Jerry tagged along with his new found spiritual support group. They bounced from one bar to another until they collapsed at Toni’s home. She offered Jerry a couch in the living room.
The next morning, while the rest of the house slept, Jerry slogged through the all-white room en route to the bathroom, careful not to tip over the Giacometti-esque bronze sculpture. While he peed, he gazed, through a wall of glass, at a view of rose tinged stubby pines over an endless plain backed by lavender mountains. Silence hummed like high voltage wires. Maybe this is a vortex, Jerry mused.
He shuffled back into the living room, settled down cross-legged on the plush carpet, closed his eyes and began measured breathing. As if in the throes of a powerful magnet, he surrendered into a meditation so transcendent it brought tears.
When he reopened his eyes, the sun was well up into the sky. He readied himself for a run. As he stretched, he spotted a title amidst a shelf full of psychology books: “Permission to be Precious.” He pulled the cassette collection off the shelf: Pia Mellody from the University of Phoenix lecturing about recovery from childhood sexual abuse. Like Alice in Wonderland reading “Drink me,” he grabbed cassette one and shoved it into his Walkman.
As he ran through the winding streets with their conflicting collection of architectural gems and tumbledown shacks, Pia’s lecture drew his mind down a different path. The victim she described, his behavior, his personality, was so familiar to him. It was like a foreign language he had never heard before, yet spoke fluently.
He stopped and stood riveted. It had been there all along, staring him in the face: his withdrawn relationship to his father, discomfort with physical contact, his sweaty palms, his overreacting to benign surprises, his fear of sex. Now, disjointed parts fell into a coherent whole. The victim described was him.
He had been sexually abused by his father.
All these years he had concealed this truth from himself. Some part of him did that, without him making a conscious choice. Now, in a nanosecond, all changed.
It wasn’t his soul mate he came to Taos for. It was his soul.
And he found her.
* * *
Still in the throes of his revelation, he showered, shaved and strode downtown where he found the breakfast place with community tables Toni had recommended. The day was warm. He chose an outdoor seat and waited.
In a short while Robert arrived and sat down across from him. With snow white hair, his probing eyes drew Jerry in.
“So, Toni mentioned you’re a hypnotherapist.” Jerry said.
“I’m a hypnotherapist.”
“I once hired one to entertain some kids. He was quite a show man. He got the tough kid to sing Tiptoe Through the Tulips.”
“Sure, that’s fair. But it can also be used for healing purposes. It can help someone break habits like smoking and overeating. It can help someone recover repressed memories.”
“Right,” said Jerry without commitment.
“Sometimes in a hypnotic state an individual can go back to a certain time and recover lost events.”
Jerry put down his coffee. “That’s why I called you.”
“Is there something you need to know from your past?”
“Yes.”
* * *
Hidden in a desolate area, the adobe brick ranch house was at the end of a dirt driveway. Jerry parked under a dense cottonwood. Heat waves shimmered off the ground. Gravel crackled underfoot.
The Ponderosa pine door swung open. Out of the bleached brightness, Jerry entered into dark shadows. Robert led Jerry across worn Saltillo floors, past a fireplace with creosote stains and an elk mount overhead.
A woman came into view, standing in the kitchen.
Robert escorted Jerry into a small room and closed the door.
“Please, have a seat.”
Jerry surmised he meant the mattress on the floor with solid crimson and yellow pillows bedecking a pale yellow bedspread. He wanted to hide under the bedspread, either that or bolt.
“Now, I’m only going to put you into a light trance. You ready?”
Jerry took a deep breath and nodded.
“Picture yourself in an elevator. You’re going down ten floors, however stop at each floor. Say to yourself, ‘I’m on the ninth floor. I am sinking slowly into a deeper state of relaxation.’” He waited.
“Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Now go to the next floor. Really feel yourself going down deeper. Let me know when you’ve reached the ground floor.”
OK, this was stupid, yet after reaching the ground floor, his body was limp.
“I’m there,” Jerry whispered.
“Take a deep breath, hold it for a count of ten, then count ten to one while you exhale.”
Jerry complied. He was a blank slate.
“Pick an age.” Robert’s voice sounded far away.
“Five.”
“You’re in your bedroom. What do you see?”
Why am I in a cage?
“Hold on. I’m younger than that. I’m in my crib. There are bright colored wood balls. I can spin them and run them up and down a stiff wire. There are wood posts.”
“Tell me more.”
“The wallpaper has fighter planes and cowboys and Indians. It’s tan.”
“Your Dad comes in. It’s night.”
“No, it’s just me. It’s quiet ….”
“What’s happening?”
“My Dad is coming in. He closes the door. He comes towards me. I smell him. A mixture of Mum and Jergen’s and some other smell, a smell I don’t like. He’s picking me up. He’s taking me into the closet.”
Jerry opened his eyes. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“You can stop any time. You’re in control, Jerry. Do you want to stop?”
“No.” Jerry closed his eyes.
“Let’s go down those ten floors again. Each floor say to yourself, ‘I am sinking slowly into a deeper state of relaxation.’ Let me know when you get to the bottom. Take your time.”
“I’m there,” Jerry said groggily.
“OK. You’re back in your bedroom. You’re younger than five. It’s night. Your dad comes in the bedroom.”
“Oh, my God; oh, my God,” he whispered.
“Jerry?”
“Oh, my God; oh, my God.”
“Jerry. Don’t go ‘way. Stay with me. What’s happening?”
Jerry’s eyes squeezed tight. His throat constricted. Tears rolled down his face.
“An erect penis…”
“Let your adult self intervene.”
“I can’t breathe; I’m choking.”
“Stand up to him, Jerry.”
“I can’t.”
“Tell him, Jerry.”
“He’ll punish me.”
“Tell him.”
“No,” he said, whimpering.
“What did you say?” Robert said, taking on a threatening tone.
“No,” Jerry repeated, louder.
Robert pushed forward onto Jerry with a pillow.
“Are you defying me?”
He pressed onto Jerry’s chest.
“Yes.”
“You are my son; I own you.”
Jerry pushed back. “No!”
“I can do whatever I want with you.” Robert leaned harder into Jerry.
“He’s bigger than me,” said Jerry. “He’s going to crush me.”
“Tell him, Jerry,” encouraged Robert.
“No, no, no, get away.”
“I use you for sexual pleasure,” said Robert in his threatening tone.
With a surge of power Jerry lifted the pillow and Robert off his chest, throwing him back against his chair. “Get away from me!”
In a frenzy, Jerry lashed out with his arms and legs. “Get out of my room!”
“You can’t talk to me that way.”
“This is my body! This is my room! Get out!” Sobs heaved between each utterance.
“That’s right, Jerry. He doesn’t own you. He doesn’t have the right to use your body.”
Jerry grew quiet.
“What do you see?”
“He’s gone.”
“Do you want to stop?”
“Yes,” he said softly.
“We’re going to come back now. Return to that elevator. We’re going back up. Breathe deeply, then exhale slowly at each floor.
“We’re at the fourth floor. Now you are ten years old. Breathe in, let it out slowly for a count of ten. We’re at the third floor. Now you are 15. Take a breath in, let it out slowly for a count of ten. Now the second floor. You are 20. Breathe in and let it out for a count of ten. OK, you’re at the first floor. The doors open. You’re back. Today is October 26, 1986. You’re in Taos, New Mexico. You’re with Robert, at his house, in his room.
“You are safe.
“Open your eyes.”
With a sudden urge for air, Jerry gasped, as if he had been way too long underwater. He felt faint. His heart deflated like a loose balloon.
They gazed at each other.
“That’s wrong,” Jerry choked out.
“Yes, it is,” Robert said.
“It’s not fair.”
“No.”
Jerry turned away toward the window. The quiet pressed in.
“Don’t make any important decisions for the next couple of days. Let the experience settle,” Robert said. “You will have lots of questions, and they don’t need to be answered. Not now, perhaps never. But here’s the good news. Your little boy just got an advocate today, somebody to stand by his side, somebody to be with him in his pain. That’s the adult you, Jerry. Today you took your little boy’s hand. You stood up to your father. You were strong. You were brave.”
A raven cawed in the distance.
“Our time is up, Jerry.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to be all right? Can you drive?”
“I’m fine.” Jerry rose to his feet. He met Robert’s eyes and sobs erupted.
“Here, have a seat. Let me get you some water.” Robert guided him down into his chair.
He returned with a glass of ice water. Jerry drank and then choked, spitting water all over his shirt. With a shaking hand, he placed the glass on the desk.
“Can I use your bathroom?” Jerry asked.
“Of course. It’s near the front door.”
As he walked towards the bathroom there was that woman again, like an apparition, standing in the shadows. She must have heard the whole thing. She knew. He hated her.
“Look,” Robert said when Jerry came back from the bathroom, “this was powerful. Be gentle with yourself. Your body has just experienced a psychic earthquake. So, be real good to yourself, OK?” He put his hand on Jerry’s shoulder. Jerry nodded.
“And here’s the part you need to hear. Just now, we were role playing with you in a trancelike state. What just happened may or may not have anything to do with your past. Yes, you may have recovered a memory, but this is not 100 percent reliable. You might just have been susceptible to my suggestions. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Jerry said.
Jerry paid Robert, returned to his car and headed towards the highway.
Time for a reckoning.Chapter
Jerry sat in his car in front of his childhood home. Behind a calm veneer, a cauldron of emotion raged. The urge to run wrestled with the compulsion to confront. His heart raced; his lungs quaked; his stomach roiled.
He stepped up two brick stairs onto the small porch, took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell.
His dad seemed smaller, stooped; his face sagged, then his eyes lit up at the sight of Jerry, and a smile spanned his face coast to coast.
“Son.”
“Dad.”
Jerry stepped into his dad’s embrace. Jerry’s nostrils filled with the smell of Mum and Jergens, and he pulled away.
His mom trundled down the hallway gushing hello. Her diminutive figure had widened. A hug ensued, albeit a short one, abbreviated by her.
Seamlessly, Jerry joined their nightly routine. His mom, with practiced efficiency, served boiled roast beef, instant mashed potatoes and frozen peas. They carried their plates down to the basement to watch TV. His dad took over the Lazy Boy; his mom, the neighboring floral patterned stuffed chair; leaving Jerry with the floral patterned sofa. He set up standing trays for each of them.
“So Jerry, tell us about your journey across country,” said his mom over Andy Rooney’s whiney voice asking, “Why is that?”
“You know, it’s mostly a blur, I really didn’t stop to explore anything. I’m trying to get to Jerusalem for Christmas.”
“Did you see the Grand Canyon?”
“If I did, I didn’t notice. Really, I was just focused on driving.” He took a ferocious bite of mashed potatoes and chewed vigorously.
“Could we watch the show please?” said his dad.
During a commercial break, he asked, “Why are you here?”
“Marvin, that’s rude. He’s your son.”
“Not lately.”
“Look, I won’t be staying long. I hadn’t seen you both since I left for Sacramento. I thought this was a good time.”
“Well, we’re glad you came,” said his mom.
Angela Lansbury confronted a murderer on the TV.
“It’s been a long day. I’m going to turn in,” Jerry said.
He lightly kissed his mom as she clutched his arms. He passed by his dad with a nod.
Up two flights of stairs he found his former bedroom still intact, like a museum piece, with its fighter planes and cowboys and Indians wallpaper. He slipped into bed, pulled the sheet up to his chin and stared at the black ceiling.
I’m scared, a small voice inside him said. Let’s go.
Soon, Jerry said.
Please.
Not yet.
* * *
The next day they retreated from an unusual afternoon mugginess to the cooler basement where a dehumidifier hummed away. His dad had never transitioned the house to central air conditioning. Instead each room used its own window air conditioner, and they had been stored in the attic for the winter.
Jerry returned to the sofa, while his dad took The New York Times to the Lazy Boy and his mom set up the ironing board behind his dad. The TV sat silent, while the dryer in the nearby laundry room hummed.
Jerry’s jaw clenched; his dry tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Whatever tough voice had goaded him into a confrontation had slipped out the back door.
“Dad, I need to ask you some questions.”
“Yeah, well I have some of my own.”
“You know, I’ve been going through some therapy.”
His dad snorted. “Much good that’s done.”
“Well, actually, it has. However it’s also brought up some memories, some uncomfortable ones, and I’ve recalled times when you touched me in inappropriate ways.”
His dad’s eyes turned a shellacked hardness. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“In my bedroom. At night.” The more Jerry forged on, the weaker and more unsure he felt.
“If you felt something sexual, that had nothing to do with me. It was never my intention and I’m shocked you would even think that.”
“Well, I do. I was lying face down on the bed. You were over me. I wasn’t wearing anything. Your hands went up my legs. Your sweat dripped on my back. I felt your breath. I smelled your body. You touched my testicles…”
“STOP! No more. I won’t have you bring such foul images into my house. Why must you waste your life in order to spite mine?”
Jerry’s body jolted. White rage surged. He lurched toward his dad.
“How dare you!” Jerry boomed, looming over him. “How dare you think I would waste my life to spite yours! You have no idea how hard I’ve worked to be free of you!”
The brakes were off. This was new, this feeling of intoxicating power. Sure there had been plenty of anger, but never any overt expression, and especially never directed towards his dad.
His dad’s eyes widened. His body recoiled.
What was that look? Fear. Fear from the man who had held such dominion over Jerry.
Thunder peeled across the valley.
And Jerry believed he was the cause of it. Yes, he had caused the skies to tremble, so powerful was he. He was omnipotent; he could move mountains, part seas.
“That’s how angry I am!” Jerry said as he pointed to the sky. “With every ounce of effort I have, I am taking my life back from you!” Saliva shot into his dad’s face.
His mother rushed around the ironing board to her son’s side. She laid her hand on his back. “Jerry,” his mom said in a low tone, “that’s enough.”
Jerry slapped her arm away. His mother gasped.
“‘That’s enough,’” Jerry sneered from his almighty height.
But then Jerry’s superpower vanished as quickly as it had come. He was once again mortal.
Jerry shot out of the house. He had no idea where he was going. His whole body shook.
He ended up at Sunnyside Park, his childhood stomping ground. Black clouds engulfed the sun. A chaos of New York Times pages swirled about in a dust devil. Rusty swings creaked.
Jerry squatted onto one of the swings and stared into the oncoming storm. Drops fell, slowly at first, fat and warm, then heavy. They soaked him.
Here in this park, as a young boy, he now realized how he had clung to normal. Like a church, he attended its summer recreation programs. From knock hockey to pasting leaves on brightly colored paper, he incanted amen. Later there would be Little League, then high school ball, routine, predictable, safe.
He had not been crazy. He had lived with crazy.
Like a bloodless coup, he had overthrown his dad. And it had been deceptively easy, after so many years of submission. His body, now awakened, was in charge. Released from her bondage, truth rang out.
His dad would try and reimpose the artifice of normalcy, nothing to see here folks, keep moving, keep moving. Let him, but there was no going back. His childhood was no longer a contrived TV family show. His belief in imagined normal parents was destroyed.
* * *
The next morning Jerry followed the smell of bacon into the dining room and took a seat. His father was at the head of the table barricaded behind his newspaper. His hand appeared, took a piece of toast and retreated back. His mother hovered around the table then finally took a seat.
“You know,” she said, breaking the silence, “it was the strangest thing. Land sakes, I don’t know what made me think of it. Last winter when we had snow on the ground, I was sitting right here, and outside there was a pigeon pecking around underneath the bird feeder, which reminded me I needed to add more bird seed, and this large bird, I don’t know what it was, maybe a hawk, swooped down and lifted this poor bird away into the sky leaving blood on the snow. I just felt terrible about it.”
“That’s quite a story,” said Jerry.
His father remained silent.
“So what’s all this about Jerusalem?” she asked.
“It’s a pilgrimage, Mom. It was an inspiration I had while I was staring at the Christmas tree you sent me last year.”
Her eyes went blank as she smiled politely.
“So, I’m going,” he continued.
“How long do you plan to be there?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, when you come back do you think you can settle down so I can be a grandma before I die.”
“Mom…” Jerry stopped himself. He smiled. “Sure, I’ll get you a dozen.”
“Well, get yourself a job first,” interjected his dad.
Jerry didn’t take the bait. “I better get going,” Jerry said. “I was wondering if you could give me a ride to the airport.”
Jerry’s dad slapped down his paper. “What did I say? What have I been saying? That’s it, Jerry. I’m done with you. And even more so after yesterday. You making up some kind of world to explain your failure. I won’t be a part of it. No. No more free ride.”
Jerry clenched his jaw and rose up from the table. There was a bus stop at the corner. He could take a bus into the city, and there he could take the subway to the airport.
Just as he reached the hallway his mother said, “I’ll give you a ride.”
“Marie,” scolded his dad.
“I will not abandon our only son,” said his mom, her back upright, yet her head bowed.
* * *
Jerry quietly pulled the house door shut, and, without a goodbye, left his dad.
* * *
“I can’t believe what you are saying. I just can’t. If I did, I would have to leave him,” said his mom.
“You’re holding onto a lie.”
“Why do you keep pushing, Jerry? I did the best I could. Your father has given me, has given us, a good life. He’s a hard worker.”
“You’d be better at dad’s business than he is.”
She smiled. “It’s too late. I’m too old.”
“I need you, Mom.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry I can’t be the mother you want, Jerry.” Her hands clutched the steering wheel as they crawled along the Long Island Expressway.
“I remember a time when I had to pick up your father at the airport, and I pulled you out of your second grade class to go with me. Your school was having a book fair, and I bought you Happy Birthday to You because you loved Dr. Seuss. In those days there weren’t seat belts or booster seats. Your feet dangled over the seat while you read. I got lost. We were in some terrible neighborhood. I never let on to the danger I had gotten you into and how frightened I was. I never said anything.”
She veered over onto the shoulder. Her head dropped to the wheel; her back heaved.
“I…,” she said, fighting for air.
“I…
“I…
“I couldn’t…
“I didn’t…
She turned to him. Black mascara tracked her tears.
“I am…,” she shuddered, “I am…
“So sorry.”
She grabbed him, pulled him into her, rough, as if grabbing for a life preserver ring, and she rocked him and rocked him.
* * *
His mom clutched his hand in both of hers as they scurried towards the airport gate.
“Fly away, Jerry.”
“You can come too, Mom.”
She let out a short laugh. “Don’t wait up.”
He turned and headed down the boarding ramp, then he looked back. She appeared so small, so frail, bundled up in her cashmere coat and red scarf, her gray hair tightly permed, her taut smile with moist eyes.
He yearned to run to her.
He turned back around and boarded the plane. In his window seat, he watched her wave at his plane. He waved back and kept waving.
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