White Owl Island

The Photograph

At first, as I started my walk back to the abbey, my legs protested.  I’d called on muscles that probably thought their days of use were over.  I had to will one foot in front of the other until my joints and muscles loosened.  I wasn’t exactly sure how far I’d run, but I knew I’d been gone about an hour and a half, maybe fifteen minutes on the roadside, thirty in the field, which left about forty-five minutes for running.  Even at a snail’s pace, I estimated I’d covered at least four miles – a long way from the abbey.  And, I had no water.   That’s what I get for being impulsive.  But on the upside, the familiar ache in my legs and the sun on my back felt good, the effect of the catharsis from the run remained, and the bus came along ten minutes after I started back.

I waved down the bus, knowing the only place it could be headed was the abbey.   The bus driver opened the door and ushered me on with a nod and a smile, but without comment.   I thanked her and then looked for the first available empty seat, hoping I wouldn’t have to subject anyone to my pungent, after-run smell.  But just as I slid into a seat a few rows behind the driver, I heard a chorus of, “Heh, CeeCee,” from the back of the bus. 

“What?”  I turned to see Brenda and the rest of her breakfast bunch filling the back rows.  As if I were a long lost friend, they all waved and beckoned me to come join them.  As bad as I looked (and smelled), I complied; they were just the medicine and distraction I needed to maintain the upward swing in my mood – a group of women who knew nothing about me and whom I knew nothing about.  No history; no agenda.

I moved quickly to the back of the bus, not wanting to get yelled at by the bus driver, and sat in the seat in front of the women.  “So, how was your tour of the island?” I asked the group.

Brenda, their self-appointed spokeswoman, responded, “Well worth the price of admission!  The garden makes Central Park look like a 4-H project.”  The rest of the women laughed and nodded in agreement.  “You went for a run?”

“Yeah.  I had some free time after my meeting and the weather seemed perfect for it.”  No need for the truth here. 

“Too bad you didn’t wait,” the woman named Rachel said.  “I can’t get any of these broads to move faster than a stroll, and I’m heading out as soon as we get back.  It would’ve been nice to have some company.”

“Sorry, maybe another day,” and considering how therapeutic today felt, I figured I probably would go out again, just not tomorrow.  After two years of inaction, I suspected just getting out of bed tomorrow morning would be a challenge. 

The bus pulled up in front of the abbey and we all disembarked, chatting and walking into the foyer together. “So, you’ll join us for dinner?”  Brenda asked.

“Sure.  Two hours should be enough time to make myself presentable,” I said, knowing I’d be ready in about thirty.

“Well, it’s not like we’ll be dining with any of the male population, you know.  Fifteen minutes should do,” Vivienne, the Cover Girl representative of the group, said.

At that moment I appreciated the dim lighting in the foyer, grateful it wouldn’t reveal the warmth I felt in my cheeks.  The last thing I wanted right now was to socialize with a group of men.  I’d be suspicious of every single dark-haired one.  “Oh, I was just kidding about the time.  I’ll see all of you at 7.  Enjoy your run Rachel.”  

Once I returned to my room, besides showering, I stretched, and tried to read a few pages from one of the novels I brought along, but found my eyes closing or my thoughts wandering after every couple of paragraphs, so I put it down.   I lay in bed and started thinking about everything that transpired over the last few days and realized that was a tape I didn’t want replayed.    I needed a diversion, so I spent the next thirty minutes or so before dinner walking around the abbey and admiring the artwork that decorated its walls.

One great advantage to having a strict schedule for dinner was that everyone knew they had to be on time.  So when I arrived in the dining hall, the breakfast bunch was already seated with a placed saved for me right next to Brenda, of course.  Since I’m not much for small talk, sitting next to her seemed ideal.  With her politician-like affection for the sound of her own voice, I figured she’d provide enough conversation for the both of us.  Which she did.

She told me all about her family.  She too lost her husband, but had been widowed now for fifteen years.  She’d gotten involved in a few relationships since, but wasn’t too eager to make any of them permanent.  She said, “I rushed into it the first time, and then spent the next twenty years wondering if I’d made the right choice.  Oh, don’t get me wrong; he was a good man, a great father.  It’s just that there were sparks, but no flames – no burning passion.  Maybe that only happens in cheesy romance novels, but then again, maybe not.  I just don’t want to go there again, unless I see the blaze.  This independence is a little too much fun.”

We both laughed, and I told her my marriage wasn’t on the flaming spectrum either, but guessed I hadn’t read enough dime store novels to know any better.   Keiran and I worked well together, and I missed his companionship.  And then, thankfully, we moved on to the subject of children and siblings.  She had a son and a daughter, which she said, mirrored her own childhood where she grew up with one brother.  And like their uncle – a general practitioner, recently widowed, living in Scottsdale, Arizona – both her children were practicing medicine just outside of Scottsdale.  The girl Anna became a pediatrician, and her son Jonathan, an oncologist (inspired by Brenda’s husband’s death due to lung cancer).  Not surprisingly, Brenda carried a family photograph with her and offered to show it to me.  Actually, she pushed the picture in front of me, and asked, “Would you like to see them?”

 “Uh, sure, “ I said.  Looking like an ad for the All-American family, I could understand her pride.  Pointing to the man in the picture I asked, “The dark-haired man, was that your husband?”

“No that’s my brother.”