Piper, Once & Again

by Caroline E. Zani

  “Yeah, it’s a cool story, isn’t it? Imagine my surprise when you just showed up out of the blue a couple of months ago!”

  She laughed, and said, “Yeah, now, I can see why you were so surprised.”

  After a moment, she said, “Oh, I remembered to bring the notebook with the poems and the journal of my scentaches.”

  His eyes widened in anticipation as he took the tattered notebook from her. “Great, let’s get started.”

  Chapter 29

  OKAY, PIPER, you know the routine. I’ll count backwards from ten, and you are just going to take some big, deep breaths and just let all the tension run out of you. Let it just run like water down your arms and off your fingertips.”

  She nodded, eyes closed, and took a deep breath. When Dr. Corcoran reached one, she was under and her breathing was calm and quiet. He started recording, grabbed his notes and a pen, and began their final hypnosis session.

  “Piper, bring me back to Rue de Verneuil when Vander was with you. Bring me to his final days, and tell me about it. What are you feeling?”

  Her breathing quickened and she shifted in the recliner.

  “I see him by the kitchen table. He’s holding his chest, and he can’t breathe very well. I know he doesn’t want me to see that he isn’t well, but he hasn’t been well all week. He’s telling me to go ahead to the factory and check on the new bottles to see if they are acceptable. But I won’t leave him; his breathing is worse now, and I can see him bending forward—he is uncomfortable and I’m getting scared.”

  John interrupted and encouraged her to move forward a day so that she would not dwell on her fear.

  “Vander is on the bed, and the doctor is here. I know it isn’t good when the doctor won’t leave. I want him to leave and I know if he does, Vander will be better. The doctor is telling me his humors are unbalanced, and he needs to be bled, he has too much blood. But I don’t want the doctor to do it. I want to sit with Vander and nurse him back to health like I have our whole lives. I’m telling him to go out to the parlor and wait there.”

  John sat back as he watched Piper’s face turn pale and solemn.

  “Go ahead, Piper. Tell me what’s happening.”

  “I’m sitting with Vander and I’m telling him it’s going to be all right. I tell him he has to be all right because I need him here with me and the children and the grandchildren need him, too. He can’t breathe now and I’m so scared and worried. He’s holding my hands and wants me to sing him a song. It’s his favorite, but it makes me so sad.”

  “Why does it make you sad? What song is it, Piper?”

  “It’s the one my father taught all the men in our new village. He learned it far away where he and my mother met before they came to France. After Maman went to heaven, Papa went to the tavern every night, singing this song down the lane.”

  “Okay. It’s okay. Can you sing it for me?” he asked her. She nodded, her lower lip quivering. Her breath hitched as she drew it in.

  Tämä ikivanha lupaus

  Suurin koskaan tiedä - henki puhelut

  Ja kuuntelen sinua

  Sinun siniset silmät paloi

  minun muisti elämien sitten

  Odotan sinua

  Etsi sinua valossa

  Salvia, rovio, jäätyneiden järvien

  Odotan sinua

  Minä odotan sinua

  Vuosisatojen avautua ja minä

  odotan sinua

  Odottaa sinua valo

  Her voice faded and then stopped. She sat, covering her face with her shaking hands.

  John spoke gently and noticed he was holding back tears. He cleared his throat. “It’s okay. Move forward, Piper, and tell me what’s happening.”

  To him, she looked like a little child after being told something upsetting, perhaps after a scolding.

  “He’s slipping away from me, and I can’t stop him. He’s very pale now, and he’s clutching his chest. I’m telling him I will get the doctor now but he holds my hand, and he’s shaking his head. He wants me to stay with him. He’s telling me I am his love now and I will be forever. ‘God’s promise’ he’s saying, ‘God’s promise.’ And I want to go with him. I can’t be here without him. But he tells me no, I have to take care of everyone and everything like I always have. I’m asking his forgiveness for letting Marek stay with us and ruin our perfect life in the country. He is telling me ‘No. It’s not your fault, Piper.’ And I … I am so sad because he is slipping away from me.”

  Tears poked their way out from under her closed lids.

  “His eyes are open, but he’s not there. Oh God, he’s not there, my love, my heart. Vander!”

  Piper was shaking all over and Dr. Corcoran asked her to move forward but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t leave that moment in time. He had read his father’s notes over and over through the years. He shook his head and waited a bit, but he knew she would not leave him. Piper would not leave him then and it was apparent to him that she never left him. In that lifetime or any other. No one would do. Not even Paul.

  He decided to end the session.

  “… 8, 9, 10. Okay Piper, when you’re ready you may wiggle your fingers and toes and feel yourself here in this room, in this chair. When you are ready you may open your eyes and feel refreshed and awake.”

  After a few moments, her eyes opened and she blinked in the dimly lit room and focused on John.

  “Hi,” she said, feeling a bit embarrassed as she had during the previous sessions because she didn’t clearly remember what had transpired.

  “Hi!” he responded and flipped through her notebook.

  After a moment she asked, “What’re you looking for?”

  But he was concentrating intently on the pages in front of him so she sat back silently. He shook his head when he got to the end of the pages and sat back with a quizzical expression. She raised her eyebrows, waiting for any sort of information.

  “That’s interesting,” he said and flipped through the pages again, this time a little quicker. He shook his head and said, “Hmmph.”

  She laughed and asked, “What’s ‘hmmph’ mean—good or bad?”

  He snapped out of his own trance and smiled, “Oh nothing bad, I just … well. You were singing a song in another language but it definitely wasn’t French.”

  Piper laughed out loud and color came flooding back into her cheeks.

  “I may have lived in France a hundred years ago but I definitely don’t speak French beyond what I learned in high school. And I certainly don’t know any other foreign language. Are you sure I was singing a song? That’s not something I do well, either!”

  He laughed and nodded.

  “Yes, you were singing all right, and it was beautiful. I just don’t know what language it was.” He leaned forward and hit the rewind button on his recorder to find the spot at which Piper was singing.

  She leaned forward, astonished. “Wait! Go back!”

  He rewound it again, and asked, “Do you know that song? What is it? Tell me!”

  She furrowed her brow and listened closely. “I … I don’t know … it does sound familiar though, but I don’t know why.” She wrinkled her nose and asked, “Is that Russian?”

  He looked to see if she had anything else to offer. She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. He stood up and walked to the window, then turned back to her.

  “I guess we have a little research to do. But I’ll tell you, that’s going to bother me until we figure out that song.”

  She rolled her eyes and said, “You? I’m the one who was singing it!”

  He responded with a friendly, “Touché.”

  He sat back down with the notebook and looked over the notes she had kept regarding the scent-aches, and read some of her poetry out loud. She winced at several of the lines, realizing how dark it all sounded, her soul spilled onto paper.

  Salvation beckons as the

  Endless tide refuses to turn

  Oceans of chance and regret

  The
years, how they burn

  I have waked joy at the funeral of time

  Show me the flame

  Hold still the line

  Hours tick and drone

  Here inside this skin

  Alone at the birth of night

  This, my forever sin.

  After going through the recording and the journal together, Piper was feeling mentally exhausted, but relieved that the session hadn’t ended on a sad note. At least I was with Vander when he passed. And he knew how much I loved him. I think I must have been a good wife. Oh Paul ….

  On her way back to the highway, she decided to stop for a sandwich and pulled into a plaza in the middle of town. The warm spring sun flooded her windshield, and she was momentarily blinded. She sat for a moment, behind the wheel, in a parking space and let the sun warm her face and make her feel unforgotten. Pulling her wallet from her purse, she stopped suddenly.

  “Oh my God, I completely forgot!” She quickly opened the change purse on her wallet and there among her nickels and pennies was the tiny slip of folded paper she put there so she wouldn’t forget to bring it to her session and show it to John. With shaking hands, she dialed his number, hoping he hadn’t left yet.

  “Hello, John Corcoran speaking.”

  She let out a sigh of relief when she heard his voice. His was the only voice among billions on earth that she trusted right now. The thought frightened and consoled her at the same time.

  “John! It’s me, Piper. I totally forgot to show you something.”

  She unfolded the paper. “It’s … it’s … oh my God, it’s the song I sang when I was under. I wrote down the name of it a couple months ago. It brought on a scent-ache, but I didn’t have my notebook with me, so I just put it in my wallet so I wouldn’t forget, which is, of course, exactly what I just did.”

  He laughed gently and reminded her that her mind had been on lots of other things lately. “Well, Piper, it’s a step in the right direction and that’s a good thing. Where did you hear this song anyway?”

  “I was looking for songs by this singer from a Finnish band that I like, and this was one of the songs that came up. I had intended to find out more about it, but … well, that was the day I finally listened to Paul’s messages on my phone, and well, let’s just say it was a rough week after that.”

  He reassured her that everything was going to be okay, that she was piecing it all together and that it always takes more time than we would like. “When you get home, e-mail me a link to that song. I’ll try to do some research, too. Sound good?”

  She said it did and hung up, not feeling in the least bit hungry.

  Back at the farm, once all the animals were fed, stalls were cleaned, and she had forced herself to have a bowl of soup, she decided to Google the song that she simply could not stop thinking about. In her office she said a quick prayer to God to let her find what she was looking for. She played the song twice, holding her breath almost the entire time, and wondering how some people, like Ville, could have such beautiful voices and others were just simply not meant to sing: namely, herself. Not my super power, I guess. Then she searched for the lyrics, and upon finding them, thought, Great, but I don’t know what these words mean. Clicking back to the search engine, she typed ikivanha lupaus English translation. She scanned the screen in front of her, hungry for the answers she, until recently, hadn’t known she needed.

  This ancient promise

  Most never know - the spirit calls

  And I listen for you

  Your blue eyes burned

  In my memory from lifetimes ago

  I look for you

  Look for you in the Light

  The sage, the pyre, the frozen lakes

  Wait for you

  I wait for you

  The centuries unfold and I

  wait for you

  Wait for you in the Light.

  Her eyes stung and in her heart she felt a longing so deep it was profoundly beautiful in its very stillness, having been caged like a tiny fledgling for centuries, waiting. Set free by such a hauntingly familiar voice, it beat its delicate wings, fanning a procession of scents and memories that played out like a beautiful story Piper’s grandfather might have told her at bedtime. Or one that John’s great grandmother might have told.

  A blue-eyed woman on her sickbed, a broken husband, a lost boy, the scent of burnt raisins, a young girl in a lonely garden, a baby’s tiny fist clenching its father’s thumb, the scents of lavender and honey, a young boy kneeling by a hurt girl in a meadow, wiping her tears away, twin boys with hair of spun gold glinting in the summer sun, one of them holding a tiny pearl up for his mother to see, vast fields of purple meeting a cloudless blue sky, a houseful of love, the stench of ashes and death, moonlight illuminating white ribbon around a dark horse’s neck, a hatful of berries, a golden medallion taken from around a neck and lowered into a grave by a sobbing man, his remaining son begging him to stop, a woman, fallen to her knees, whose eternal grief keeps her from ever having another child.

  For the first of many times in her life, Piper felt certain that she was alive for a reason, that her life meant something. She knew without a doubt that even the anxiety she was feeling creep into her throat was all a part of being alive. The anxiety, fear, sadness, despair, and loneliness were all just part of life, as were joy, excitement, anticipation, and love. For once, she embraced it all and all at once. Racing down the stairs, heart beating like Valo’s hooves, she looked at the clock in her kitchen which read 9:37 p.m. She dialed the phone and ran her fingers through her dark hair.

  “Kim! Hi! It’s Piper. Sorry to call you so late, but I need to talk to you about the farm. I’ve decided to stay.”

  Chapter 30

  TIME IS A RELATIVE THING, moving us along at a snail’s pace, but, upon looking back, how it seems to have flown by. A whisper on the breeze, such are the decades. Ten years passed, and time moved Piper gently along on the tides of change. Singlehandedly, she transformed the vineyard into a Friesian breeding facility and riding school for children. Horses and children require, and also teach, great patience. She folded her friends inward, close to her heart, blending them into her life like the siblings she never had. Loneliness was not the constant companion she thought it would be in the absence of Paul. She dated men of substance and morals through the years and on a few occasions thought she might marry again, but knew that it wasn’t as important to her as it once was. Replacing Paul could never happen, and finding Vander wasn’t meant for this lifetime. So she righted herself and forged ahead with both of them deep in her heart, letting them guide her along her path.

  It was in her 51st autumn that she received a phone call from her dear friend, John Corcoran, whom she had kept in touch with through the years, attending his wedding and children’s christenings, birthday parties, and Christmas dinners.

  “Piper. Hi! We’re getting off the turnpike now, and I always take the wrong road to get to your place. Remind me which one it is?”

  She giggled like a little girl and could picture John’s wife sitting in the seat next to him growing impatient and giving him a hard time, something she had excelled at early in their marriage.

  “You are one of the brightest men I know, and yet you couldn’t find your way out of a wet paper bag, my friend. It’s your third left, and I’m about two miles down on the right. You’ve been here at least fifty times. Do you want me to stand at the end of the drive and flag you down?”

  He rested his head on the headrest and laughed aloud, “No, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Oh, don’t let me forget, I have a surprise for you.”

  The scent of roses and a feeling of dread filled her as her throat tightened. She was flooded with the memory of Paul’s voicemail so long ago.

  “Okay, I’ll see you soon. Drive safe.”

  She hung up the phone in the stable’s office. She returned to the indoor arena where Philip stood quietly with an eight-year-old child perched on his back. His ears came for
ward as she approached and she gently ran her hands down his long, sleek black neck. “Okay, Tori. Ask him to walk on, using your legs. Don’t tug on his mouth; he’s doesn’t like that. That’s it! Well done! Can you believe a horse that size will do anything you ask as long as you have the patience to ask it the right way?”

  The little redheaded girl looked at her, shook her head no and tried to hide a smile, but several bright white teeth poked their way into the daylight.

  Piper smiled back at her and said, “Patience is a virtue and you must practice, practice, practice, just like you did with your posting and look how wonderfully you do that now.”

  Freckles disappeared into dimples on the girl’s face as she unabashedly smiled now at the compliment.

  When the lesson was over and she heard John’s car in the drive, Piper bade the girl and her mother a good week.

  “I’ll see you next Saturday and I think that’s when we will try our first canter. You’ll like it, and I think you’re more than ready. Good job today, young lady.”

  John and his family rounded the house just then and headed for the stable yard. His wife, not the outdoorsy type, followed slowly behind, picking her way slowly through the yard as if there might be snakes lying in wait. Piper laughed to herself how some people can seem completely mismatched and yet make it work. John was a good man: Salt of the earth; and he fell in love with a demanding woman whom he loved taking care of.

  “To each his own,” she said under her breath, out of earshot. He held a child’s hand in each of his. Kayla didn’t want children and after the many years of trying to negotiate with her, to no avail, he became a “big brother” to two little boys from the city. He loved to bring them to the farm when he had time, and his wife granted permission.

  “Hi!” he said when they were still a hundred feet away.

  “Look who I brought!”

  Piper smiled and waved.

  “Hi, boys. It’s so good to see you again. I hope you brought your boots so you can ride.”

  They looked up at the tall woman in boots and breeches and nodded their shy little heads, moving closer to John’s legs. He stroked their blonde heads.