Читать книгу How Far the Mountain - Robert K. Swisher Jr. - Страница 9

“Happy Birthday,” Sheila said to herself as she got out of bed, not really happy but strangely content.

“Another year older, girl,” she said to her reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the front of her bedroom door. Slipping out of the pink, knee length, imitation silk nightgown she tossed it on the bed. “Not too bad for forty-two,” she said, examining her naked body.

Sheila made a cheesecake pose, put her right hand behind her head, bent her knees slightly, and opened her mouth like a centerfold. The open mouth bit had always made her laugh. Straightening up, she turned sideways and tilted her head to get a better view of her profile. She had a fine, well-proportioned athletic body and an impish face that made people feel like they could talk to her. She wore her auburn hair short, but long enough to bounce when she walked. She knew men glanced at her a lot. She was not model-beautiful but she was sexy and bubbly like a young schoolteacher.

“I need a man like I need cellulite,” she laughed to her reflection.

She tried to laugh as much as possible, it seemed to help, and it kept her sadness partially at bay.

Leaning closer to the mirror she scrutinized the tiny crow’s feet in the corners of her soft green eyes. “Experience,” she said, making a haughty face and pushing his touch from her mind.

Dressing, she put on a pair of loose fitting faded Levi’s, a gray sweatshirt and tennis shoes. By noon she had finished her normal Saturday routine. The house was clean. The plants hanging in every window were watered and all the dead leaves picked off. The washing machine was churning away with all her respectable work clothes as she called them, those that did not have to go to the dry cleaners. At one time she wished she could have worn Levi’s or sweats to sell real estate, but she had gotten over it after her first big sale. Now, with her own company, she wore her business suits and matching outfits as more of her personal joke on the world. “Hell,” she told herself one day, “nobody has to know I’m an old hippie at heart.”

Now, nobody really knew what or who she was. He had known her as much as another person possibly could. She tried to tell herself it really did not matter, but she knew it was a lie, wanting desperately for someone to know her and share with her.

After the dryer was going, she brushed her hair, drank two glasses of orange juice and left the house. It was a beautiful day. Several neighbors were mowing their yards. She did not wave to them as she drove by in her new light blue Chevy four door.

Entering the cemetery she tried not to be depressed. She always liked cemeteries, but that was before his death. As a young girl she and her aunt would go to cemeteries and read the headstones. There was something peaceful and timeless in a cemetery then. Everything was in order. Everything neat and tidy like a little boy sitting in church with his hair slicked down and his shoes shined.

Driving slowly through the older part of the cemetery the headstones had a fearless and brave dignity that embraced death—the huge cottonwoods and oaks spreading like wise and ancient prophets over the headstones.

The newer stones were like all the newer houses she sold, too plain, too identical, too conforming, too everything. “We are all individuals of sameness,” she thought, without being bitter or sad.

The trees in the newer part of the cemetery were infants. Anywhere else Sheila would have liked the young trees. But, here they bothered her. Death was not new, was not an infant. Death deserved shade and majesty.

Parking the car, Sheila turned off the ignition and sat for several moments staring at a hill of dirt from a freshly dug grave. Two starlings perched on the top of the pile of dirt. For an instant she imagined a crying widow standing by the coffin. “No,” she commanded herself. “No.”

Going to the grave a man and woman were praying solemnly at another headstone while, not far away, a young boy and girl played.

By the grave Sheila forced a small smile over her thin lips. “I still have a great body, good legs, flat stomach, and my boobs don’t sag,” she said to the grave.

A slight breeze kicked, carrying the sound of children’s laughter like the tinkle of far away silver bells to her ears. She sat down next to the grave as if by sitting she would be closer to what had been. “You know I only come here on my birthday,” she said distantly.

She did not see the man and the woman glance over at her.

“It’s been two years and I’m still not in love. Can you imagine?”

Her bravery began cracking like the delicate milky porcelain on an antique doll.

The man called to the children who ran to him. Putting his hand on the boy’s head he said, “You must be quiet, there’s a lady over there and we don’t want to disturb her.”

The two children did not say anything to each other.

“I’ve met lots of men,” Sheila continued. “It’s not that I wouldn’t like to be in love. I would. You know that. But I haven’t met anybody who wants me. They all want something that isn’t me,” she said, weighing her words carefully. “They want me because of my job. Or the way I dress. Or my smile. Or my eyes. My hair.” She forced a giggle. “Okay, okay, my body. But, at my age it’s either the young ones who need a mother, or the old ones who need a bauble. My luck, huh?”

She noticed the man and woman and the two children walking toward a white minivan. She wanted to wave, but it did not seem quite right. “I’d like to be in love,” she said to the headstone. “Or maybe I’d like somebody to love me. I don’t think I would have to love them if they loved me. Really loved me.”

Picking a blade of grass that was taller than the others she twirled it between her fingers. “I’d even like a good male friend. Somebody I could go dancing with, or out to eat, somebody with no demands. Don’t laugh, I know—a man with no demands. That’s a joke.”

Standing, she brushed the grass from her pants. “We were good for each other. I want you to know that,” she said. “And I want you to know I’m fine. I can take care of myself. You always said I was strong and independent and could take care of myself. You were right.”

For a brief moment she could see his face as he was dying and the tubes, like veins, running into his deflated body. “You are strong, I love you,” he said, through the drug haze and the pain.

The family in the minivan drove away. “Poor lady,” the woman said to her husband. “She is probably alone.”

“Will you get us an ice cream?” the young girl asked her father.

Sheila started toward her car but stopped and went back to the grave. “I forgot to tell you,” she said. “I’m going backpacking up in the mountains by myself. It’s my birthday present to me. I’m taking a week off and going up to the mountains. Doesn’t it sound grand and brave?”

After a few moments she went to her car, noticing for the first time the chorus of singing birds that filled the air. In the car she saw two men begin pitching a tent by the freshly dug grave. Starting the car, she thought, “I loved him but now he is only a memory, a warm memory, no different than a joyful dream, or a pressed flower in a book.”

But, she knew he was more than a memory.

Driving back to the house she was making a mental list of what she must buy for her backpacking trip to the mountains and pondering where she wanted to go. She was excited about her adventure. Not happy, but strangely content and trying to be brave.