May the Road Rise Up to Meet You: A Novel

by Peter Troy

  How are you, Ethan? she asks, in a voice that suggests all the understanding her own life has surely instilled in her.

  Fine, fine, you say quickly, then blurt out a question you obviously know the answer to. You’re out here every mornin’ now that spring’s here, I suppose?

  Mmm, just about, she answers. It’s my time to talk with Gertie.

  And you’re relieved in the silence that follows that she doesn’t seem taken aback by the implicit awkwardness of the question, or feel the pressing need to ask about the plans for the rest of the day or details on your current emotional state.

  Thanks for takin’ her with you this mornin’, you say after a few moments, and nod toward your daughter.

  It’s my pleasure, she says, really it is. There’s something about the way the little ones see things—like everything around them has such special meaning.

  It helps to have a short memory, I s’pose, you say, then worry that it might open the door to a deeper conversation.

  But she just laughs and looks protectively over at Aislinn, who’s busy brushing the palm of her hand over the azalea shrub as if by doing so she can make it bloom faster. And then Mary turns back to you with her eyebrows slightly pressed together and a slightly puzzled look on her face.

  I was thinking this mornin’ about something Gertie would tell me from time to time, she says, and then gazes out over the water as if letting the notion rest for a moment or two while she collects her thoughts into the exact words she means to say.

  And just as you start to feel compelled to break the silence, she looks back at you and smiles.

  I was always an inquisitive child, I guess you could say. And she nods over to Aislinn, smiles again, and adds, Sorta like someone we both know.

  And you laugh, saying, Inquisitive … that’s puttin’ it gently.

  I s’pose, Mary replies, but I think I musta been even more of a handful—especially for Gertie, with all she had to overcome just to get through a single day. And I had a memory just this mornin’ … thinkin’ about—y’know—what day it is.

  And now you worry that the foolish emotions of the moments preceding will wash over you once again. But Mary looks back out over the lake to allow you to fight back the water that wants to return to your eyes.

  I remember watchin’ Gertie do one o’ her stitchin’s, she continues with her eyes still averted and her voice changing ever so slightly. An’ I could only see the back of it, y’know, ’cause she didn’t much like showin’ it to anyone, even me, ’til it was close t’bein’ finished. So all I could see were all these bitsa thread, all different colors, different types of material even, runnin’ ev’ry which way—all of ’em tied off togetha in justa fit of knots an’ tangles … just a mess, y’know? Didn’t make any sense.

  And you can feel her look over at you for just a second before looking away again, content to hear you mumble an unconvincing mmm-hmm for a response.

  It didn’t look like any of it could ever fit together, not into somethin’ with any kind of meanin’, anyhow—an’ I just hadta know how she made all th’pieces fit together—how she even knew what she was makin’ an’ what it was gonna look like in th’end. And I remember askin’ her—demandin’ almost, as much as I’d ever try to demand anything from Gertie, leastways—sayin’ to her, Gertie, how you know whachu doin’ in all that mess? But she just laughed a little and asked me how I was ever gonna see what it was she was makin’ when I was all caught up starin’ at just the knots an’ tangles an’ such.

  Mary turns her gaze back to you now and smiles when she sees you looking back at her, unashamed to have the water in your eyes.

  Then Gertie tells me … and it’s clear as anything I can remember from those times I’ve been runnin’ from all these years, Ethan … runnin’ from all the sad memories of everything that got lost along the way …

  And now it’s Mary with the water in her eyes, but she carries on.

  … she says to me … Don’t none of it, the stitchin’, the knots an’ tangles an’ such … don’t none of it make any sense ’til you seein’ it with all that mess fit togetha the way it’s s’posed to be seen—’til you seein’ it frontsways.

  And she laughs a little, sniffling back the memories and dabbing with her sleeve at the water along her cheeks. Then she looks intently at you, as if she’s trying to tell if you’re artist enough to understand the real meaning behind her story.

  Anta May! Aislinn calls out, then appears around the corner of the shrubs and points up the path.

  I see a flowa, Anta May!

  And Mary walks the few steps up to the clearing of the path, taking Aislinn’s hand in hers, ready to be led to a bold lily or delinquent crocus or whatever other manner of bloom has your daughter in such a frenzy.

  But she stops at the clearing to glance back at you for a quick moment, and understanding now, you think, it’s long enough for you to say in a voice just above a whisper … Thank you, Anta May.

  And she smiles … knowingly.

  It’s that evening in the dwindling light of the gloaming when the moment arrives to truly celebrate the founder of this gathering. Chairs are set out on the porch for Mam and Da, Aunt Em and Corrine, and Seanny, too, and here’s the audience for the play to follow outnumbered by the cast and crew to perform it … as if such a thing matters to anyone at all. Inside the screen door, Ethan and Isabelle and Mary and Aislinn put on their costumes, little more than blankets wrapped over their clothes in the fashion of togas, except for dear Aislinn, who giggles all the while as she steps into the large burlap sack filled with pillows. Marcella kisses her, then takes her seat at the piano, looking out through the window for Micah’s cue. And as Mary and Isabelle gingerly fit Aislinn into the costume that would terrify less adventurous three-year-olds, Ethan can’t help but giggle himself, with thoughts of how this day has turned into something only the distance of twenty years could make so possible.

  When they are settled, Micah clears his throat and sets the scene for the audience gathered before him as Marcella plays the dirge of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony to set the mood. Ethan steps outside the screen door and onto the porch, enacting every emotion as Micah tells them of the perilous voyage of the great Odysseus, who left his home in Ithaca to fight with the vast armies of Agamemnon, alongside the mighty Achilles outside the walls of the fortress city of Troy … and so on and on. Oh, the many and terrible battles they did fight, Micah says, as Ethan takes his broom handle become sword and pretends to battle the mythical hordes sent to smite him. And there is such laughter amongst the audience that he begins to embellish the moment, the way he always did those twenty years ago.

  Now Micah bellows out the description to match the crescendo of the music and laughter. Oh, the hardships they endured, through the death of so many valiant men on both sides of the seemingly unending conflict … and when it was done Odysseus was left to fight the god Poseidon, who endeavored to keep him from his home. Only when Aeolus did contain all the winds of the sea and earth within a cloth sack he gave to Odysseus was there hope of returning to Ithaca. And here Ethan steps inside the screen door, picking up Aislinn wrapped in her satchel and giggling just the way the winds should. He walks back out to the porch, followed by Mary and Isabelle wrapped in their blanket togas, and following enviously behind him.

  Until Odysseus did grow tired, Micah says, and the music and the moment grow more still—all except the giggling winds set down on the porch before them.

  His companions did conspire, sure that there was treasure contained within the mysterious satchel, Micah declares, and now Mary and Isabelle pretend to whisper and plot and move about. Until finally they open the satchel and the wind, uncertain at first, pops out of the satchel, and surveys the audience before their laughter encourages her own, and Aislinn pops her arms free, bursting, giggling, forgetting to be the wind until Isabelle reminds her, then blowing hard as she can toward the audience. Marcella scrambles her way up and down the keys to make the music of
all the winds of the earth, and Isabelle lifts Aislinn up, the bottom of the sack still around her, and they spin all about the porch, Isabelle and Mary making the sounds of the wind and Aislinn mostly just reveling in it, along for the ride, making some sounds of the wind herself when she can remember to.

  Then Ethan wakes up and throws his hands over his head. He rushes to contain the winds, taking them from Isabelle, as Micah tells of the ship being tossed all about on the waves. Mary’s thrown off the porch first, and then Isabelle soon after. And Ethan holds on for dear life to the hysterical winds, stealing a look at the audience, boundless laughter and smiles from all but Seanny and Da, neither one of them having witnessed the original performance of this scene but knowing the significance of it all the same, and the two of them thinking maybe they could’ve somehow held back the tide of The Hunger all those years ago, if only they’d been there to do it. Now instead, it’s their clenched jaws holding back the tide of the water in their eyes, anguished memories like Ethan’d known all too well ’til just that very morning. But then, Aislinn, the wind, seems to focus in on the two of them while Ethan holds her in his arms, and there’s a slight tilt of her head, the way her father does sometimes, the way he’d emulated from her namesake once upon a time, and it’s as if she knows all about it, somehow offering with a single kiss of her hand and the sweep of it over the audience there before her … at long last, redemption.

  And the music begins to slow, becoming soft again, as Ethan twists a few more times and places the wind back on the floor before collapsing to it himself, exhausted, his arms and legs sprawled in every direction. And Aislinn, smiling at her audience for a moment first, falls across her father’s chest and squeezes her eyes closed. No more of the wind within her.

  Only laughter.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to:

  Marly Rusoff, my most-understanding agent, for her dedication to finding Ethan and his friends a comfortable home; and Michael Radulescu and Julie Moscow.

  Alison Calahan, whose thoughtful editing and vision helped make the sum of the parts a far better whole; and the profoundly patient Coralie Hunter and Janet Biehl.

  And the start of things:

  Mrs. Pat Carter from Catholic University those many years ago, a wonderful writing teacher who wouldn’t settle for just good enough; Father Charles Kohli, a sage who made my family so much the better for having known him; and Peter James Troy, who instilled in me a love for the beautiful game of baseball, and more significantly even, a love for history … and the apparently genetic inability to pass a roadside historic marker without stopping to read it.

  And Frank McCourt, Alice Walker, Alex Haley, Shelby Foote, Langston Hughes, e e cummings, Frank Capra, Ken Burns, Maya Angelou, and Junot Diaz, too.

  And Then, Most Essentially:

  Carol Troy, who was there for every tangent and byway and found endless promise around every turn … and helped me to see it, too.

  Ann Marie Troy, who was a beacon of hope from the very beginning and taught me to celebrate each step along the way.

  Nolan Guiffré, who provided greatly valued assistance and encouragement through final rewrites and edits.

  Jerrilyn Breslin, who shared the wisdom that it is sometimes necessary to fall in the ditch in order to see where the road is truly headed.