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Lizzie
AfterNewYork,Gatlinburg seems to hardly justify being called a ‘town’. Yet, compared to East River Forge, it’s a metropolis.
Main Street in East River is considered busy when more than one person is heading down it in the same direction. Gatlinburg is currently home to at least three dozen shoppers in my eye-line alone and it’s only 10 am on a Sunday. Hardly peak-time.
As I stroll along the downtown area, I find myself smiling at the bustle. The noise. The life.
The sound of shopping bags rustles around me and the indiscriminate chatter over coffee shop counters pours through open doors onto the street. A car honks angrily in the distance and there’s the permanent hum of engines.
The streets are bold and colorful. Famous brands and wholesale favorites are snugly fit beside boutique and family-owned businesses. Ripley’s Believe It or Not is a monster of a building. Yet, it doesn’t seem out of place on the vibrant roadside.
With the space needle in the distance and gondola lifts reaching out into the Smokies like spidery spokes of a wheel, Gatlinburg is a giant theme park, held suspended by its wires in the mountains.
As I breathe it all in, I’m jostled by a man hurrying by and realize that, for the first time in a week, I’m actually in the way!
Given the secluded streets of the Forge, I hadn’t been in the way in over a week. Except in Caleb’s place, of course.
I shake myself out of my tourist trance as the New Yorker in me seems to reawaken. She’s sleepy, but she’s there. And, despite knowing nothing of Gatlinburg and equipped with only a paper map and my natural smarts, she gets me from the post office to the pretzel shop, and then to a bench in the small park in the center of town. With hot dough in my mouth and a parcel that’s more brown tape than cardboard under my arm, I content myself with soaking up what might be the last sunny day of the autumn.
Before I can get too dozy, I check my watch.
“I’ll be done by one,” Caleb had said as we pulled up at the far end of downtown’s main shopping street. “Yellow Fields Home doesn't allow visitors past then, so I’ll pick you up here.”
It had been all he’d said on the entire ride along the 321. There had been tension in his shoulders and a downturn at the corner of his mouth.
I’d felt it best not to argue.
I close my eyes and slip a hand under my shades to rub at my eyes. I can feel a headache brewing.
Yellow Fields is a facility for people with mental illnesses. An assisted living home in which those unable to care for themselves are given a semblance of independence alongside professional care. Caleb had been willing to recite the company’s business line when I’d asked him but I still had yet to discover his mother’s reason for being there.
Had she suffered an accident? Was she severely impaired? Maybe dementia? The list of possibilities is too long to wonder over. And not a single option would be easy on Caleb.
I feel my heart squeeze in my chest as I imagine that severe corner of his mouth. The way it had deepened the closer we had gotten to town. The man is hardly Mr. Chuckles at the best of times but this morning he’d been worse than usual. He’d had the look of a convicted criminal waiting to face the gallows.
“Ugh,” I grumble, chomping down on the last piece of my pretzel. Life just isn’t fair.
Before thoughts that smell distinctively like grief can overtake me, I polish off my fingers on my jeans and take Mom’s parcel in hand.
With my stubby nails, it takes forever to get through the tape. But, after a few bites, some serious scratching, and the removal of a piece of tape from my tongue, I have a workable hole. From there it’s just a matter of digging down like a beaver until the flaps are free and I’m confronted with a pile of white packaging pieces.
“Oh for God’s sake. What have you sent me, a Ming vas—?” my voice dies as I retrieve a picture frame from the bottom of the box.
I stare at it. For what feels like an eternity.
The frame has that simple but expensive look to it. Sleek dark wood and plain glass. The kind you might display in pride of place on a bedside table or on the wall in your entryway. The photograph inside is of a family of four. Three blonde and one redheaded. Mom is the copper-top. James and I had always taken after Dad. The pose is a classic family shot. Mom is standing behind James, her arms around his little body. I—aged about eight—am holding fast to Dad’s neck, my legs dangling down his chest as I sit on his shoulders. I’m wearing little pink sneakers.
It might have been a forced pose, but the smiles are real. The joy on our faces holds its own natural mark.
My mother’s smile is almost embarrassed. As if she’s shy to show herself so happy. James’ almost toothless grin stretches from over-sized ear to over-sized ear and, while Dad’s isn’t as manic, they share the same wrinkling in their noses. I must have been mid-laugh when the picture was taken—the ice cream in my hand and the dribbling mess in Dad’s hair might have been why. My eyes are squeezed shut and my mouth gaping wide with that screaming excitement reserved exclusively for kids.
I notice my cheeks feel suddenly ice in the breeze, and I realize they’re wet.
Fantastic.I swipe at my cheeks. I’m crying like a baby. In public.
Thanks, Mom.
My gratitude is more than a little snappy. Not because the photo has brought out the grieving hunger in my heart, but because Mom is no stranger to emotional manipulation. This isn’t just a thoughtful gift. It’s a reminder of what is waiting for me back home.
