December 27th, 2008
Saturday
I know there’s a place I have to take Ella to.
I can’t believe I’m getting the chance.
We get off the bus in the middle of nowhere, a quiet hilltop in Brooklyn that leads into the trees just outside the city.
In the darkness of the night, the panoramic view, a thousand little lights seen from above, reminds me of the street where we had met so many times.A street where we had spent so many hours.A street where we slowly wove closeness into the lines of twinkling lights.
It’s a different city in the distance.
But this is the one place in New York that has never failed to remind me of her.Of Evermere.
I look at Ella, who hasn’t sat down or leaned against the bus stop.She stands there, immobile body, silently attentive, as if analyzing every light on the illuminated horizon.
“You’ve always loved this.”I stretch my arm.“Panoramic views, especially—”
“At night,” she finishes my sentence.Still not moving.Still hard to read, just like when we were younger.
I would be lying if I said I never thought about the possibility of going back to Evermere and seeing her again, just because I hadaccidentallydriven myself there, just because I knew I could, just because of an old whisper I had once stored inside.
My mom left town shortly after me, with that guy whose face I can no longer remember precisely.Needless to say, he’s not in the picture anymore.Gaston was cut out a long time ago.
But my mom had an unyielding spirit.She found ways to never return and kept living her unsteady, restless life.Until three years ago, when she met a “different man”, as she would say, and I wouldn’t believe it.I met thisdifferent manwhen they came to visit me in New York.I heard his words and read the way he carried himself, and something in me told me to trust it this time, to believe that she’ll be fine, to have faith that thereissomething different.She moved to his hometown, a 40-hour drive from me, from where she calls me to tell me they still live happily, and to ask me how happy I feel.
After that, there’s only one person I still keep in touch with who lives in Evermere: Miss Amara.I kept nurturing the idea that I would go back to town to visit her, but I still haven’t.Even so, she has come to New York to visit me many times.And every single time, I’ve had a blast showing her my life here, and her showing me how the corners of the city used to look 50 years ago, when she first set foot in this place.
“Have you seen Miss Amara lately?”I interrupt the silence.
“I have!”She looks at me, smiling, and doesn’t return the question.It makes me wonder if she knows that my answer is also a positive one.“I mean, I saw her about ten months ago,” she adds.
“You don’t live there anymore.”I say it, implying only half a question mark, certainly sounding more like an affirmation.And not because of the answer she just gave me, but because Miss Amara told me Ella is living and working in the city now, amidst one of our few conversations about her.
During these years, I never asked Miss Amara about Ella.I thought I’d rather not know, and I think Miss Amara telepathically understood and respected that.Until about two years ago, during one of Miss Amara’s visits here, I finally asked who the grown-up Ella was.
“Yeah,” Ella says.“My family still lives there.And I have a house there too.But I’m living in Verryn now.”
“You have a house there?”That, I didn’t know about.
“It’s recent, but it was a great deal my mom heard about, and I just fell in love with the place.It’s a beautiful house.Wooden floors, big windows where the sun walks in, a green, peaceful garden…” she shares.“Sometimes I wish I lived there every day of every week.”
I look at her, trying to understand if she’ll continue what she seems to be pondering.
“It’s hard growing up and realizing that managing time is your hardest soft skill,” she says.
“Managing time?Your friends from high school used to say your days were 28 hours long.”I grin, and she mirrors me.“Are Ella Hartfield’s days smaller now?”
“I’ve been trying to negotiate with the time goddess, but she hasn’t been very flexible lately,” she jokes, her words matched by her playful gestures.
“What do you feel like you don’t have time for?”
“Spending enough time with my family,” she answers without much thinking.And I realize that’s something that’s been on her mind for a while now.“My brothers are all growing up so fast.I never fly out to visit my dad.I miss my sister so much, and spending quality time with my mom… I miss so much of what’s going on by being away from them for so long.Ireallymiss going to the beach, but I don’t take myself there.And with Miss Amara… I’m always telling her the next visit will be longer, but I always end up with a million other things to do that shorten it.”
“I understand what you’re saying.Even if I don’t exactly understand some of the things you’re feeling,” I say.“You sound mad at yourself for not managing time the way you’d like.”I look at her, she doesn’t answer.She seems thoughtful — sad in some way.“Remember when we used to ask each other if the other needed solutions or just ears to listen?”I ask.
Her eyes smile tenderly, and she nods.
