The Endless Pilgrimage

1560 Words

Triggers: A car accident. Death.

The Endless Pigrimage

This is how the memory always begins. My kitchen counter overlooking our rose garden. The scent of lavender tea brewing in my grandmother’s teapot. The calendar page – June 2. Four candles burning on the table behind me. I’ve kept this solo vigil for ten years and probably will for the rest of my life.

It was an unusually warm June 2nd that year, probably best described as hotter than a black cat’s fur sprawled under a blazing sun. Not that my cat was anywhere outdoors. He was more likely wrapped around the bathroom’s toilet’s base since the air conditioner needed a new compressor and money was at an all-time scarcity. I, however, was in our pale yellow car. Not only was it the color of a lemon, but it had proved to take on the persona one too. We had replaced the starter, the battery and the radiator all within the past four months. Now the air conditioner was making strange noises and puffs of cool air becoming a rarity, probably a sympathy strike with the house AC. I finally turned it off and looked at my twelve year old daughter, Kendall, seated next to me. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “You’re going to be late for class again.”

She sighed, heavily and dramatically, pushing her damp hair off her forehead. “Miss Alison said we have to be on time. Our recital is next week, and we still don’t have our pirouette down.” She slouched down in her bucket seat. “When is that car gonna move. We can’t just keep sitting here.”

I thought about explaining how cars can’t move until the ones in front of them start moving but decided against it. Instead I leaned my head on my arm propped against the open window. When indeed would anything move in the right direction? My career? My husband’s career? What looked like cars stretching for a mile ahead with no turnoffs in sight - it felt like a metaphor for my life.

I reached out to pat my daughter’s leg encased in pink tights, but she pushed my hand away. “Too hot,” she whined and kept on slouching. If she kept it up, she would be a heap on the floor soon. I shook my head, thinking how she used to cuddle with me. That seemed like a long time ago now, not that I could blame her. When had I stopped snuggling with her? When had her pushing me away become me never trying? I would need to remember what was happening between us was natural, and not allow it to evolve into hurt feelings.

Someone up ahead honked a horn which set off a round of echoing blares from other impatient drivers. Kendall’s hand shot out and beeped our horn before I could stop her. Her effort produced more honks from behind us.

I sighed. “That won’t help.”

“But I liked doing it.” Her brown eyes popped fury. “I have to get there.”

Just then the road opened up, and we were all moving again, slow but steady. Within minutes I saw why. A fire truck and two cars so mangled I couldn’t even be sure what they’d been came into view. Yes, we were rubbernecking, but who wouldn’t have driven slow, unable to avert eyes from that scene of glass and twisted metal. We were alive, but sobered.

By the time I pulled into the parking lot of the dance school, I knew we were too late. Rehearsal was almost over. Maybe the fact two other girls had been caught in the traffic jam so she wasn’t alone in being absent softened Kendall’s mood. We didn’t talk much on the way home, but there were no angry outbursts, not even a complaint when I told her we had to stop at the grocery store for salad fixings.

When I unlocked the front door, Kendall followed, but ran up the stairs, stopped halfway, and turned around. “That was a real bad accident, wasn’t it?”

I nodded, wanting to say something comforting, but she was off again.

I was busy making dinner when the six o’clock news came on the small television sitting on our kitchen counter. I heard the word “accident” and looked over at the screen. It was the scene Kendall and I had witnessed, except it had to be earlier because ambulances were still there. There were two, and they started moving away at a slow pace. No survivors, I thought at first, remembering the cars.

But there was a survivor. A 17 year old boy who had been recklessly speeding in the brand new car he’d received for his birthday. His friend, also 17 had been in the passenger seat. The car they had crashed into was occupied by a man and his grandmother.

I pushed aside the tomatoes I was busy chopping and hung my head. Kendall and I had been fretting over air conditioners and missed rehearsals at the very same time others ahead of us on that road had been taking last breaths. That was sobering.

I continued watching the small screen. The man had been two weeks shy of his first wedding anniversary with his college sweetheart. His grandmother had been carrying on her lap a just-purchased crystal punch bowl for the anniversary party the entire family had been looking forward to. I thought of the young wife answering a doorbell that would put an end to all her plans for a future with her beloved. I thought of the family of the boy who died, the graduations they wouldn’t be attending, the grandchildren who would never be born.

Without even thinking about it, I turned off the television and went into the family room. I collapsed on the couch. It wasn’t anywhere near sunset, but the room felt dark to me. I heard my daughter moving about upstairs. Soon she would be old enough to be getting into cars with people I didn’t know. Maybe boys who would think it was fun to take their new car out for a spin. Would I be able to stop that from ever happening? No. Would she remember this day and tell them to slow down? Probably not.

Beyond the door wall, my roses were putting out their first buds. I thought about going out into the late evening heat. The buds would be heavily scented in the warmth. Young life opening up. Season upon season upon season. What about the boy who had caused the accident? Per the news his injuries were minor. But that was only true on the surface. This accident could prove his undoing. To be responsible for three other deaths when he was himself only 17. What about him? What about his family? Would their years ahead be filled to visit him in prison? Even if he managed to escape that fate, his life wouldn’t be the same.

I heard the front door open and knew my husband was home. He would be expecting dinner because it was my night to cook. I jumped up, and saw him in the kitchen doorway. One hand brandished flowers, the other a bottle of champagne. He set them on the counter and grabbed me in a hug.

“I got a promotion.” He swung me around until I was dizzy. “We’re set now, Susan. Everything’s going to be peaches now.”

And it was. Air conditioners were fixed. Credit card balances decreased. We took our first vacation in three years. Something nagged at me in the back of my thinking every time I came to that stretch of highway. It seemed as if I could see it all happening again, and I thought about those who had died and the one who had lived, and each time I felt my heart flip. How close we had been, Kendall and me, maybe even just a few minutes away.

I tried avoiding that road, but it wasn’t always possible. I looked for the spot where the accident had occurred, unable to just drive past it without acknowledging the pain of those affected. Time, I thought, that was what they would need, what I would need to put aside the trauma of such a horrible day. I was a lapsed Catholic, not even sure what I believed anymore, but I began saying a prayer to whoever might be listening. It was mostly, “please, please, please,” because I had no other words.

Time does change things. We no longer live in that area of the city. Kendall will begin Med school in August. The larger home we bought feels emptier, but good fortune has wrapped her arms around our little family. But what about them. Did that young widow find love again? Did the parents of her husband survive losing the generation above and below them? And what about the boys in the other car? What about their families? What about the survivor, the perp, the cause of it all? Every June 2nd I set aside time to remember. I’ll never know how the ripples from that day spread out in the lives of those people I didn’t know.

I’ve come to accept that I am a personal shrine for them, a shrine they will never know exists. I raise my cup of lavender tea to my lips and inhale deeply of hope.

THE END