The Compass

by Tammy Kling

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1 - NIGHT

  Chapter 2 - ESCAPE

  Chapter 3 - THE STORM

  Chapter 4 - THE INTERSECTION

  Chapter 5 - PETE’S CABIN

  Chapter 6 - THE JOURNEY

  Chapter 7 - THE GARDEN

  Chapter 8 - ADVENTURE

  Chapter 9 - HOLLAND

  Chapter 10 - EXPECTATIONS

  Chapter 11 - LETTING GO

  Chapter 12 - FORGIVENESS

  Chapter 13 - THE TIME IS NOW

  AUTHORS’ LETTERS

  READER’S KEY

  AFTERWORD

  The feature length documentary

  Copyright Page

  PRAISE FOR THE COMPASS

  “The Compass is a simple yet profound guide to take you from where you are now to where you want to be.”

  —T. Harv Eker, author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

  “The Compass will take you from where you are now to that place you’ve been destined to reach. It will help you achieve your goals and dreams.”

  —Brian Tracy, New York Times bestselling author of No Excuses!

  “The Compass is more than a book. It’s a book that will change your life.”

  —John Assaraf, bestselling author of Having It All

  “Wow! This amazing book sits up, rolls over, and teaches you the wisdom of the universe in a breezy, easy-to-read style. It’s a masterpiece!”

  —Dr. Joe Vitale, author The Attractor Factor and cast member of The Secret

  “This book is a road map for you, disguised as a fascinating novel—use it to navigate your journey to achieving your dreams, happiness, and inner peace. It will inspire and guide you as you continue on your path to fulfilling your life mission joyously.”

  —Marilyn Tam, Co-Visioneer HealthWalk, former CEO Aveda Corp and President of Reebok Apparel and Retail Group

  “If you want to change your life, read the life lessons that will transform your reality into an abundant new future.”

  —Kelli Calabrese, America’s Fitness and Lifestyle Expert

  ALSO BY TAMMY KLING

  Exit Row

  There’s More to Life Than the Corner Office

  For Mark, Reed, and Luke

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  We’d like to thank the fabulous team at Perseus for their dedication and love for this book. Roger, Amanda, and Georgina, you’re the best! Thanks to Peter Miller at PMA for being a fantastic manager, and to Adrienne for her love of literary excellence and guidance! Finally, thanks to our loved ones and to the One who made this book possible, the inspiration for it all.

  Chapter 1

  NIGHT

  Sometimes you must let go of the life

  you had planned in order to make room

  for the life ahead of you.

  Five seconds can alter your life forever. It can change the course of your dreams and wipe out everything you’d ever hoped for. It can send you into the wilderness, in search of nothing.

  Three days into the Nevada desert I felt the soles of my shoes melting. I stopped, turned one foot upside down, and examined the bottom of my sneaker. The rubber fibers seemed to be on fire, heating to higher temperatures with each step.

  Waves of heat rose off of the surface of the red sands. It was miles outside of Amargosa near Death Valley, the driest place on earth. I didn’t know when I’d find nourishment, and I didn’t care.

  I knew from my research in neurobiology that the brain could last several days without water. The dendrites would repair themselves; the synapses would still fire. The brain was an amazing organ with the ability to repair itself against even the worst circumstances. But if I didn’t find water soon, dehydration would set in, and my brain could lapse into confusion. I’d start seeing things, hearing things . . .

  I took a step forward through an arroyo, scanning the landscape for a cactus. Inside would be gallons of water, and some species had sustained the lives of ancient Indian tribes wandering the desert for years. I walked for another five minutes until I found a craggy rock and sat down, lowering my head into the palm of my hands.

  I had no plan and no desire for one. When I’d started out, I had wanted only to escape.

  Before I had set out on my journey, they’d insisted on throwing a small farewell gathering for me, and, amidst the chaos, I heard something muttered from the back of the room.

  “It’s almost as if his life has been divided into two sections: before the accident and after.”

  It was true. I was a different man now. I felt like a cadaver divided down the middle with a Stryker saw, my breastbone cut open, exposing the organs. Like a body during an autopsy, my heart had been ripped out and placed on top of my chest for examination. The blood had ceased to flow. I was a cadaver.

  Hollow.

  I considered eating the small energy bar I had left in my backpack, but I knew that if I did there was a chance it would make things worse. My insides would tighten. Water was needed for digestion, and the food wouldn’t get through the small intestine without it.

  “You okay?”

  The voice startled me, and I looked up into the sun. I rubbed my eyes and swallowed hard, my throat parched and sore.

  Was the process beginning?

  “Here’s some water if you need it.” The voice was gruff, yet distinctly female. Through the glare I saw that she had graying hair and a creviced jaw darkened with lines. She held the slim canteen toward me. “The waters hot, but it’s better than nothing. Only a fool comes out here without a canteen.”

  I took it and unscrewed the metal top, downing it.

  “You lost?” she asked.

  I shook my head, “No.”

  “No one sane comes this far,” she said. “Must be lost. In one way or another.”

  The woman wore brown shorts and a long-sleeved cotton shirt with pockets and snaps down the front and on the arms. A large black camera hung from a leather strap around her neck. She kicked at the dirt with her boots to make a small clearing, something I’d once read about in a desert manual. Experienced trail guides did it to check for scorpions and rattlers before they sat down.

  “You got a name?” she asked.

  I held the canteen a little longer, considered drinking, then wondered if it was all she had.

  “Jonathan,” I said. “Jonathan Taylor.”

  “Jonathan, do you realize that it’s 115 degrees out here?”

  I said nothing and shrugged.

  “You need more than a t-shirt,” she continued. “And jeans aren’t the best thing for the desert.

  “I’ve got a tent over there,” she said, pointing to a small clearing of trees. She tapped the camera. “You can rest in the shade as long as you want. I’m here for a week, taking pictures.” She looked intently at my face. “You’ve got a bad wound there. You need something for it?”

  I touched the left side of my jaw. It had been two months now, but the wound wouldn’t heal. I shook my head.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine,” she replied.

  “So why are you here?” I asked. “Why the desert? It’s pretty desolate out here, and there’s not much to see.”

  “I’m a psychologist,” she said. “Former, that is. Always wanted to be a photographer, but it’s the one dream I never fulfilled. I’ve always loved the open space of the desert, and I guess you could say I’ve escaped my life to come to this place. To shoot my last photos.”

  “Your last?” I looked at her curiously.

  “I’m dying,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Are
n’t we all?” I replied.

  As soon as I said it, I wished I could take it back. I looked at her dark expression and knew it was true. She really was dying.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  The woman just laughed.

  “Don’t be. It’s not about being sorry. We all have a beginning, and we all have an end.”

  “But is there a cure? What’s wrong with you?”

  “I have cancer, and it’s terminal,” she said flatly. “Ironically, it’s a brain tumor. Imagine that, a psychologist who uses her brain all her life, with a brain tumor. There is no cure. But it’s okay, Jonathan. I’ve made peace with it. I’ve chosen to come here.” She turned to look straight at me. “And you?”

  “I flew in and just started walking. I walked for days, slept outside. That’s about it. I ended up here kinda by accident.”

  She pondered that for a moment, then stood and took the canteen from my hand.

  “There are no accidents,” she said, motioning me to follow. “We may think that there are, but there aren’t. You have a family?”

  I stood and walked slowly, following her toward the tree clearing where she had set up camp, and pondered the irony of her words.

  There are no accidents.

  What the hell? I thought about my wife and daughter. Yes, I said silently. There are accidents.

  “See, I’m taking photos of that rock outcropping as the sun sets,” the woman said, pointing to a distant canyon. The mountain range was wide and distinct, with tall peaks jutting high into the heavens. “It’s very different from the kind of work I’ve done my whole life. I’ve found my passion now. I’ve discovered my destiny. I may not have more than a few weeks to live it, but that’s not important.” She sounded sincere.

  “What kind of work did you do in psychology?”

  “Hemispheric integration.”

  “Hemispheric what?”

  “I helped people understand the wide capacity of their minds.”

  “My wife was a first-year neurologist,” I said. “But I’ve never heard that term.”

  “Was?”

  I looked down into the brown sand.

  “Was,” I said firmly.

  “Well, when we experience an event in our lives,” the woman explained, “we record in our memory two separate and unique pictorial representations—one in each of the brain’s hemispheres. The left hemisphere is responsible for logical, linear thinking. The right is more concerned with spatial relationships and concepts such as personal safety.”

  “And?” I replied, intrigued.

  “And if we consistently use the perception from only one side of the brain, our choices are limited, and personal issues remain unresolved. Learning conscious control over which hemispheric image to utilize broadens our range of choices, and more responses become available to us. Imagine being able to understand and access the brain as it was designed to be used.

  “Accessing this second hemisphere opens doors that we didn’t even know existed.”

  I shrugged.

  I wondered if there was some way I could change my own way of thinking, reprogram my brain to see the events of the past one hundred days entirely differently. If I could drive by that intersection just one more time and experience nothing—instead of seeing the image of them lying in the road, that last breath . . .

  Maybe my life could change.

  Maybe I could rewind, go back to the old job, go back to the house, back to the former friends, and act as if life were just a series of peaks and valleys. Maybe I would be able to overcome the valley. Get remarried. Be like the others in our society who are so good at reincarnating, adopting second lives.

  I could have a whole new wife, a new kid, and justify it all by saying there are no accidents, and reach the understanding that it was destined to be. Feel as if I were destined to be with this new person, destined to bring another life into this world. Ignore the fact that the first family ever existed and got wiped away in a single moment.

  Problem was, I could see none of it. I was hollow.

  “Why didn’t you jump?” she asked.

  I looked at her blankly.

  “You wanted to jump,” she continued. “You wanted to end it all at the overpass, at that intersection, and join your little girl on the other side. You thought that would ease your pain. What stopped you?”

  “I didn’t tell you that,” I said.

  “But it’s true.”

  The intersection seemed to be a metaphor for my life. There was an intersection at the end of the road, and I had to make a decision. Would I turn left? Or would it be right? There was nowhere else to go. I had stood there on the pavement in the days following the accident, like an eggshell, crumbling. I stood at the side of the overpass and clung to the railing, vomiting in the rain.

  I had removed my coat. Puddles seeped into my sneakers, but I didn’t care. I took them off, stood barefoot in the middle of a torrential downpour and wailed. I shouted at the top of my lungs, cursing at Lacy and God and anyone who would listen, as my heart emptied and everything was replaced with rage.

  I don’t know how long I’d been there or how I made it out. The overpass was a short walk from the impact site, and the bottom was more than twenty feet down, with rocks below.

  I hadn’t told her about that moment. I hadn’t told anyone.

  “Who are you?” I asked, feeling anger rising inside my gut. “Are you a psychic or something? One of those witches who can see into someone’s life?”

  The woman laughed.

  “I’m not a witch,” she said. “But who are you?”

  The road that Lacy and Boo had been on was the kind of road that went on for ages. Not miles, nor minutes, nor hours, but it seemed as if there were no exits, no roadside diners, or interruptions—just one intersection three miles from our tiny house. Before the accident, there were times I drove that road just listening to the hum of the engine, with no radio or cell phone to distract me. Years ago someone had nicknamed it the forever highway because it wound through cornfields from one end out west to the other, connecting a whole string of states. It snaked up into the mountains and down to the sea. It wound through California into the flat red sands, and it wound so tightly around my family at that intersection that day that it squeezed the life out.

  Years before the accident, I recall driving in the dark of night, wondering what would happen if my car broke down and how I’d make it back. I’d have to get out to walk, in search of a service station. Maybe another traveler would come along and find remnants of my bones and go on, or maybe I’d be carried away by vultures.

  “What’s your name?” I asked. They were the only words I could manage.

  “Marilyn,” she said warmly.

  I glanced at her profile, noticing a small drop of sweat traveling down her throat. She had a death sentence, yet she seemed more centered than I’d ever been, as if she had a built-in compass of some sort that had guided her all her life. Here she was, an old woman in the middle of the desert, yet completely at home.

  “Could there be any other meaning to this?” I asked. “You think there’s a reason we’re sitting here in the center of this scorched earth, in the middle of October? Just the two of us poor pitiful souls?”

  She began laughing again then. She threw back her head, and, to my surprise, I laughed, too, for the first time since the accident. I leaned against the nearest tree and felt a sharp layer of bark against my flesh and a rush of strength and adrenaline. It felt good to feel something. I laughed hard, pulled out of my numbness, until I began to cry.

  The tears fell and my body heaved with sobs.

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” I admitted, gasping for air and wiping my face with my arm. “I don’t know what I’m seeking . . . ”

  “Does anyone?” she asked.

  “I don’t know . . . ”

  I had a flashback then. Boo in her car seat with a pink plastic sippy cup in the cup holder. “I want my bear,” Boo said, poi
nting to the stuffed animal on the ground. It had tumbled out of the Explorer onto the driveway when we opened the door.

  I should have turned back then. I should have stopped everything and seen it as a sign to halt.

  Stop.

  Don’t let them go.

  “Get it,” Boo said, like a demanding little dictator. As always, I relented and picked it up, handed it to her, and kissed her on her cheek.