Chapter 2 #2
As I take in a landscape of green, tree-covered inclines rising up from foothill towns that cater to travelers with fast food and gas, I keep thinking about—trying to dissect—why I’m really traversing this winding road.
First I return to the willow theory, overdramatic metaphor or not.
When you get a diagnosis like breast cancer, you become that willow.
See this doctor, have that test. Go to this hospital, get that operation.
Read this article, do that exercise, have that treatment, put on this cream, take that pill.
No matter what strong, independent person you started out as, you find yourself constantly bending, swaying, letting yourself get whipped about by the process.
So maybe this is simply a continuation of that.
I haven’t had a chance to change the pattern yet, so when Kevin says, “Go to my grandma’s house,” I just do it, because I’m a willow.
And ... maybe if I’m still a willow, it means I do need more time to heal. Not my body, but inside. Maybe a quiet resting spot is what I need, and even though my brain is rebelling against it, perhaps something deeper within me knows it’s right.
Or ... maybe I can’t stand the idea of sitting around waiting to be invited back to my job.
Watching Tiffany deliver the news from behind my desk was one thing when I was physically unable to do it myself.
But now it would make me seethe inside. Note to self: Don’t watch broadcasts on your phone, no matter how tempting.
Maybe I think I’ll hold on to more dignity if it appears I’m choosing to take more time away, and getting out of the city for a while makes that look or feel a little more real.
Or maybe it’s merely ... retreat. Running away from what I don’t want to see. The equivalent of going to the garden to eat worms, as the old children’s song says.
And maybe it’s all of that. Maybe I don’t know what else to do and can’t find my way right now, so I’m letting forces beyond myself choose my path. I glance briefly from the road up into a hot blue sky, already pale from an early-June blast of summer humidity.
One last possibility hits me then. That I’m tired of being a burden.
Kevin and Sydney both had to take care of me when I was sick.
They did it lovingly, generously, and I didn’t have to ask—they volunteered.
When you don’t have any family, your friends become your family, and they’re who you turn to when you need something—whether that’s a lift when your car’s in the shop, a place to spend the holidays, or someone to help you with the aftermath of having heavy-duty chemicals pumped into your veins.
But deep down, I felt like a burden. I mean, it’s not fun work they were given.
It was so freeing each time I regained enough strength to stay by myself and let them get on with their lives.
So if it makes Kevin feel better about the Tiffany situation for me to just get out of town—if it’s easier for him if I’m out of sight, out of mind—then perhaps I’m only trying to .
.. be the opposite of a burden for a little while.
Everything around me simply feels ... wrong. I was so sure things would start feeling right again when I finished treatment, and that expectation was the thing that got me through. Where’s the rightness, though?
When my cell phone rings, I glance to the passenger seat thinking it must be Sydney, that maybe she already has a question about the house—only to see Tiffany’s name and picture on my screen.
This is unexpected. I don’t really want to answer.
But that’s childish, so I reach for the phone. “Tiffany, hi.”
“Hey, Jessica.” We go through the “how are you?” niceties, and I mention I’m driving, until finally she says, “So I was just talking to Kevin.”
“Oh?” Get to the point please.
“I was asking when you were coming back to work, and at first he was pretty elusive, but he finally explained what’s going on.”
“Going on?” What exactly does she know?
“Yeah, he told me you were ready to come back, but that since management wants to keep me at anchor for now, you decided to take an extended vacation. And I wanted to let you know I feel awful about it.”
I sigh. Thanks, Kev. You couldn’t have said I’d be back in a few months and left it at that?
Try as he might, discretion has never been the man’s strong suit.
But I guess I should just be thankful he didn’t fill her in on the failed dress rehearsal.
And I know Tiffany’s attempting to do the right thing, but I feel awkward and embarrassed, two emotions I’m not good with.
So I try to play it off lightly. “Well, I appreciate that, but it’s fine. ”
“I’ve learned so much from you,” she says, which is nice.
“And I hope you know this wasn’t my idea.
” Which is less nice, because it’s about covering her ass.
And it also implies she has the power to make such things happen, which isn’t true and annoys me.
“I miss my morning spot with the Cockadoodle Crew, and I’m ready to get back there as soon as . .. well, as soon as that can happen.”
I truly don’t know what to make of any of this now—what she really wants, where she really stands, whether this gesture is sincere or, again, just covering her butt to keep me from having it in for her.
Call me crazy, but I’m finding it hard to believe a pretty, ambitious twenty-five-year-old misses getting up at three a.m. to come to work.
Though I take the high road, even as my car dips so deep into a valley that I need to apply the brakes. “It’s truly fine, Tiffany, I promise. All is well.”
When she answers, it’s garbled, just bits and pieces of her voice coming through. “Understand ... Knowing ... Try ...”
“Tiffany?” I say a bit more loudly than before, as if that makes a dead zone clearer.
“Are you there?” she asks.
I can hear her clearly again, but I still say, “Tiffany, you’re breaking up. I’m driving through some mountains. We should probably disconnect, but thank you for calling.”
“All right. I hope you have a good summer, Jessica.”
I push the button to hang up without even saying goodbye. None of this is her fault, and I know she probably meant well and I’m only being paranoid right now, but the call still makes me feel worse instead of better.
Just then, my GPS tells me to exit in two miles—and I suffer a slight sense of doom, like I’m about to pass through some kind of dark gateway. I was so ready to emerge from the fog when I went to the station last week, but now I’m about to sink even deeper into it.
At first, when I turn off the ramp, the road stays wide—four lanes dotted with an old auto-repair place, a little white church, and a few clapboard houses, one with a barn out back.
But soon the asphalt narrows to two lanes, sloping gradually upward as I pass a few farms—after which I find myself navigating dark, shaded hairpin curves, my car hugging a rugged mountainside and carving a path I can’t quite believe someone once carefully determined was the most efficient way to get wherever it is I’m going.
At some point my GPS quits directing me.
Usually, even in a dead zone, the GPS gets me to the place I keyed in and then I find out I have no internet after I arrive.
But when I see my screen telling me the connection is lost, I understand why Kevin insisted on writing out directions “just in case.” I pluck them from the outer pocket of my purse, trying to keep my eyes on the curvy road before me.
Just when I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve missed a turn—because how can a town exist anywhere around here?
—I find myself winding my way back into the sunlight and down into an open valley cradled between mountains on all sides.
And that’s when I pass an aging wooden sign that says Welcome to Lost and Found .
The town is even tinier than I expected. I’m suddenly on a mostly deserted Main Street and can see only a few houses and buildings dotting the area beyond the main drag. The name of the town suddenly makes sense—you start feeling pretty sure you’re lost just before you find it.
It’s clearly one of those forgotten places, the kind the expressway bypassed a long time ago and left for dead.
Probably a Walmart showed up somewhere an hour or two away in the eighties or nineties to deliver the final blow.
Although the buildings and storefronts are old and mostly empty, I can easily imagine Bonnie and Clyde or Pretty Boy Floyd racing up the thoroughfare, guns ablaze.
No new buildings have been erected here since the Great Depression.
Before I reach the end of the two-block-long strip, I spot an antique store and barbershop still open for business, and then a café—so the place isn’t completely abandoned.
And that quickly, I’m through the town, back onto country roads, my written directions instructing still more turns over another few twisty miles.
I’m getting tired of driving and wondering just how much more deeply into the Kentucky mountains I can go—when I at last reach my destination, Lost Valley Lane. Another aptly named place.
As I turn onto the narrow, wooded lane, a tiny part of me is suddenly almost excited to see this idyllic cottage Kevin promised—maybe it’ll sweep me away with its charm.
After passing two or three small, average, well-kept ranch houses, all spaced far apart and separated by lengthy clumps of trees, I reach a classic white farmhouse.
And just beyond that—no tree clumps in between—I see “the last house on the right,” as Kevin’s directions read.
I know it’s the last because of the unceremonious dead end, the road stopped by a tall stand of pines.
Across the dead end from Kevin’s grandma’s house rests a small older home painted an interesting combination of peach with lavender trim—but the place barely garners my attention because of the house where I’ll be staying.