Lost
By Gene Bourne
Do you know where you are?” A voice speaks from the darkness.
Enveloped in the cool night air, the map on my phone glowed eerily.
“No.”
A missed turn on the moors forced us to race dangerously in twilight on a root strewn, rugged wooded trail. By the time the two of us emerged from the trees, in the absence of light neither sensed which way to go. The good Samaritan provided directions to our lodging; however, the gloom would soon find us again.
In the morning Lola and I sipped coffee in a café. The noise and chatter of diners created a background to our communion. Suddenly, my phone rang and broke our reverie.
“It’s Kevin, do you want to take it?”
“No, but I think I should.”
I watched my walking mate’s face for any signs of the calls content. It remained frozen.
“That’s it. She’s gone. Six a.m. today.”
“Do you wish you were there?”
“No. I was there two weeks ago and said my goodbyes. I didn’t need to be part of the death watch. Her sons were there.”
For years the reaper waited on the horizon for Lola’s sister. Our walking journeys were scheduled around her health. I reached out and held my lover’s hand. We were three thousand miles away in southwest England. It was too soon and the distance too great for her to feel the sting of death.
The two of us finished our walk high in Devon’s rainy and foggy moors, but a cloud travelled with us. After a week at home, we drove two thousand miles to New York. Lola had the arduous and unpleasant job of closing her sister’s estate. Now we are mired in dust, artwork, books, jewelry, photo albums, journals and the details of a once vibrant life.
As the two of us walked through a park next to the Hudson River we were passed by trim young women out for a run. Their ponytails swung back and forth like a metronome. The health-conscious joggers wore headphones or were deep in conversations with unseen lovers and were oblivious to anyone around them. They never made eye contact. It’s how people survive and maintain their personal space inside a city of millions.
“Why are you giggling?” I ask.
“Because of what you’re looking at. Her butt.”
“It’s beautiful and alluring to watch it slide softly back and forth. Her sweatpants accentuate the shape like a covered piece of treasured art.”
The nonstop roar of vehicles from the highway below ascends to the eleventh floor of her sister’s condo. At street level it is at first alarming, then overwhelming and soon becomes a backdrop to life in the cold cement, glass and steel world.
“I’m sure the noise has a long-term negative affect on people,” Lola says.
I am numb.
We find refuge at a tavern the two of us frequented in another lifetime. The manager greets our dog and gives him treats. He is from New Zealand and has been at this centuries old haunt for more than forty years. I question if I’ve made a mistake and entered his personal space when I ask his name.
Like an egg cracking my partner begins to feel. Not the soft, spongy earth of a long-distance trail or the sound of birds welcoming a new day or the rush of water tumbling over a rocky stream, but the loss of a profound love relationship eight and a half decades in the making. Joyful romps on the sands of the Caribbean and Egypt, shared lodging in desperate times, comfort and shelter from life’s pains as well as harsh words spoken from early years of sibling rivalry.
“Hold me closer. Do you love me? You don’t seem to miss sleeping together.”
There are no beds and Lola sleeps on a couch and I on the floor. The small flat is filled with rehabilitation walkers, wheelchairs, a hospital bed, medical supplies and reminders of her sisters thirteen years spent without feeling the joy of putting one foot in front of the other. It was Lola who saved her sister then, when she swung between life and death in the clutches of a horrible infection. Now Lola vacillates between pain, loss, a lifetime of memories and is overwhelmed by the mountains of paperwork she must go through.
2:30 a.m.
“Are you awake?”
“Yes.”
I sat next to her and put my hand on her back. “Sleep. Let go of the demons and sleep.”
These trails are unlit even in the daytime. They are felt, not with hands or feet, but with raw emotions. Some days I sense the light at the end of the tunnel; others are spent wandering in the darkness.
