Homecoming

In times of mass casualty, we come together. As helpers, we’re the ones who pull people out of burning houses and highway wreckages and hold their hands when they inhale their last breath in the back of an ambulance.

I wasn’t expecting to see Bard here, but the need for all hands on deck is mounting. We are suspended right now; its not quite time to swoop in but its coming. Bard looks just as surprised to see me. In another life, we might have harbored low-key embarrassment at being reunited without warning. But that was, well, another life, when we were young and tethered quite tightly to that youth.

“Here we are,” he says, unnecessarily, and I chuckle because that is just so very Bard. We always called him the narrator, Katya and I. I am instantly transported back in time, to a time when Katya and I spent nearly every weekend with Bard and his wife, Elaine. We were fledglings, so much more attractive then—smooth skin and bright eyes, still unmarred by life. We were the epitome of living the dream, until we weren’t.

Back then, we were barely thirty, riding high on good jobs fresh out of college, 401Ks that were amassing surprisingly fast, back-to-back weddings that resembled fairy tales. We bought starter homes in the same neighborhood, had babies together. We traded our sporty cars in for minivans that could house multiple car seats. We turned basement man-caves into playrooms and assembled swing sets in our backyards, always helping each other. We spent almost every weekend together, and were truly each other’s family in a world where blood relatives were signatures on Christmas cards and faces barely recognized unless we saw them over a Thanksgiving turkey.

And then, Bard and Elaine had a third child, and she died, and we stopped being friends. In hindsight, this fallout makes sense, but it was hard to fathom then. For them: they were swimming in trenches of grief, no end in sight. For us: we stood on the edge, helpless to help. Now, I might have known what to say to my friend, but back then I couldn’t reach him, not with an invite for a cold one and the game on tv. Elaine only saw Katya’s growing body, our own third child making its way into the world, and she could not control her envy, her hatred towards us for having what she did not. Misplaced, we knew that. But something broke between us. We could not remain friends.

We broke up, essentially, and part of our lives died with Bard and Elaine’s baby. We had other friends, and we made new friends as the years went on. We celebrated life’s ups and struggled through the downs, but nothing ever seemed as cruel as what happened to our friends: both in the vein of a dead baby and the loss of our little family. Bard and Elaine, we heard, eventually divorced. It was a time of darkness, back then.

.

It’s a time of darkness right now, and I can see, under the surprise of running into me, that Bard is also feeling the weight of what’s happening. This is just another hurricane season in southeastern United States, and though I’ve spent a lot of time here—Elaine and I lived our whole lives in North Carolina—I haven’t experienced this level of threat before.

“It’s getting worse every year,” Bard says, verbalizing my thoughts. He sighs. Historically, humanity rights their wrongs but the irreversibility of climate change is worrisome. This is Hurricane Inez, which makes it the ninth hurricane of the season, and its only September. I glance around. The sheer number of us ready and waiting is a bit overwhelming.

It’s not time to go in yet; Inez hasn’t made landfall, and they are still trying to get the holdouts to evacuate, the ones who have lived through hurricane after hurricane and refuse to leave. We know they will be the ones the National Guard rescues from rooftops with family pets clutched in their terrified arms. There is a high school filled with reluctant people, residents who didn’t want to leave but felt uncertain about staying in their homes with the level of wind that is predicted. There are grave concerns about the school, as a shelter, and we’ve been briefed. So, we wait.

Bard catches my eye. I’ve wondered so much about him, all this time. What happened with the rest of his life? Where are his children? Elaine? Has he been well, is he well now? How did he come to be right here, in this moment, standing sentinel alongside me? As we look at each other, grins appear on our faces, mirroring one another. I am flooded with emotion that would have mortified the younger me. I have missed my friend, our bond, and our brotherhood.

“It’s been a while, huh? Haven’t seen you in forever and now here we are, waiting for a hurricane,” Bard sighs, ruefully. I can see that he’s older, obviously, but that grin and the shake of the head make me think of young Bard, a thick head of brown curls and that stupid mustache that would totally be in style now. We had both been runners, marathon junkies, and I can remember how fit we were, back then. My life packed on pounds in middle age, took my left knee and mangled the ligaments so that running was out of the question, and threw me a love affair with sweets and Guinness beer. Bard, it seemed, had maintained his slim physique.

“Where have you been, man?” I ask him, casually, as if decades haven’t passed and it’s only been a few days since I’ve seen him. We settle back into a comfortable familiarity, and I find myself wondering why this took so long? Why didn’t I seek him out then, especially after I heard about the divorce? I recall the feeling pang of regret, but Bard seems to shake it away before I can put a voice to it.

“Its all good, Terry, really. Let’s see…Cassidy was born and died in…oh, what year was it? Anyhow after that…” There is a calmness in his voice as he speaks of the seconds-long life of the baby that broke him. Them. All of us. I know this is simply part of the growth that comes with age. You learn that life on earth is not the dreamscape you might have hoped for when you married the love of your life under calm skies, the future unwritten. By now, we’ve been around long enough to know that life is suffering—for everyone. But a perspective comes when you look at it backwards. Things that broke you simply become things that happened.

Bard continues, narrating his life after our paths split as if he’s telling me a bedtime story. I can see him in the fading light of a summer night on my back deck, a sweating beer bottle in his hand, telling me some story or another. The image engulfs me so strongly I barely hear what he is saying now. In the memory dusk, I can see Katya and Elaine at the kitchen table inside, the tired faces of mothers with small children, still so youthful and beautiful, goblets of burgundy wine in front of them. Our life was golden then, and we barely even appreciated it. Again—youth!—but still.

Bard, sensing my nostalgia, reaches over and pats my forearm as he talks. He tells me that they moved to a new neighborhood a year after the baby died, in hopes of erasing the memories made in that first home. We both smile sorrowfully, a little bit of aching for the simple hopes of who we once were. Another year, and Elaine and Bard split.

“I always loved her. She loved me too; it was such a dark place for her. We split and did that every-other-weekend thing with the kids. They grew up, and we all grew apart. It wasn’t just her; you know. I was a mess, drinking a lot. I wasn’t a good dad, not as good as I could have been. Kids got married, started their own families. They’d still split the holidays between Elaine and I—it was sad, you know? I should have tried harder to fix it but, eh?” Bard shrugs. I know what he means. I, too, have things I regret but one cannot go backwards. Even when you take inventory of everything you’ve done—you cannot rewrite the story.

I gesture in front of us, and its like we are watching some disaster movie on the television, the winds and the surges about to obliterate this small coastal town. This pocket of land that usually the storms miss; the one we once both called home. We can see Inez coming at record speed.

“Why are you here, now? In North Carolina?”

“For Elaine,” Bard says.

I smile. Its nice to know, that despite it all, Bard and Elaine’s love was the real deal. I’d always thought so…in fact, that seemed to be what connected the four of us. Other people got married and we knew, we knew it wasn’t going to last. We could tell, as if we were beholden to some secret of true lovers, knowledge other people didn’t have. I’ve loved Katya since the day I met her. I loved her when we dated in college and the day I made her my wife and each time she gave me a child and when she stood by me as my life wound down to something different than I’d ever expected. I’ve loved her in good times and bad—all the cheesy wedding vow stuff. She's my soulmate, and I always knew it, even before I knew it.

Bard and Elaine were like that. We got each other. As friends, but as couples too. That’s why it was so unbelievable when we heard they’d split, even given the tragedy they’d endured. It shook us—had we been wrong about them, then? Or were there truly things in this world that could break even the foundation of true love?

“I guess you’re here because of Katya, then?” Bard asks me. He gets up and stretches and looks at his wrist even though he wears no watch—reflexive human moves that say, its almost time. More and more of us gather, ready at the helm. The roof of the school is ripped off with one swift gust and my heart vaults. There is so much fear in that building right now, so much terror. Death is nothing to be afraid of but dying…dying is scary. I’ve seen it; I know firsthand.

“I’m here because of Katya,” I confirm. Katya. Just saying her name stirs something delicious in me. Time is different now, simultaneously ages long and the whole blink-of-an-eye idiom. I am awash with that feeling I had at nineteen, when Katya was driving from her college to mine for a weekend. That wild sense of anticipation, feverish desire, nearly unable to bear waiting any longer for her. I look over at Bard, and I can feel every molecule of his spirit saying the exact same thing. This tragedy is going to hit hard, but we aren’t here for the aftermath of that.

We are here for Katya and Elaine. Its their time. And I cannot believe they are together.

I reach over and take his hand, and he squeezes mine. I haven’t helped anyone cross over in a while, due to my age and the timing of things in my life. It is an honor and a privilege, and I still remember the oozing warmth and brilliant light when I reached my hands out and took my father’s. When he welcomed me home. I wonder why I hadn’t been here for Bard, or him for I? The wind is roaring now, and I look at him, not needing to ask.

“I did it to myself,” he says, shrugging again. There is no shame anymore, and I understand. “I couldn’t have accepted your help even if you’d been here. Which you weren’t, not yet.”

I wonder why I hadn’t known this, back then. Was it not in the paper? Had we drifted that far apart that I wasn’t even checking up on his whereabouts? It doesn’t matter. We’re together now, and that’s what’s important. Bard gives my hand a squeeze and makes a joke.

“I feel like we’re about to go on a double date or something,” he says. I smile at the witticism, but we are edging deeper and deeper into the transitory world. More and more amass around us. There is fear and terror on one side, love and peace on the other. We are light amongst the chaos. We are ready.

“What about you?” Bard asks, dropping my hand. He cracks his neck and his knuckles, an old earthly habit I remember well. We start moving towards the devastation, towards the high school.

“I gave into the wrong sorts of pleasures,” I tell him. When I was in my forties and two knee surgeries failed to let me resume running, I became depressed. Katya, worried about me, suggested medication, which made a world of difference, but also made me gain weight. I stopped watching my diet, because why bother when I couldn’t run and my happy pills were going to pack on pounds anyhow? I didn’t care much about my dad-bod. Katya and I were happy, our kids were doing well, and my corporate job was at that level that required very little of me beyond showing up and pushing some papers in exchange for a fat paycheck. When the youngest went to college, Katya and I picked up the routine of dining out most nights, which led to more bad eating and even less exercise. I didn’t even mow my own grass; choosing instead to pay other people.

“Heart attack,” I told Bard. “My own fault for not taking care of my body.” In hindsight, it wasn’t shocking given my slow climb to near obesity and my love of dark stouts and dessert at every meal. Still, I was astonished when I crashed to the floor of our bathroom one morning, my bloated and doughy body giving up, only to be brought back by the paramedics. I hovered for a few days, between here and there, with Katya holding my hand and looking more fragile and wrecked than I could imagine. I didn’t want to leave her.

But, it was my time. I was no longer scared, and there was light and purity and my father there to receive me. My mother, gone since I was a teenager, was waiting in the wings. It was a joyous homecoming, and I understood everything then. My whole life had collected itself in a stock of images, and I saw that I had chosen every single obstacle, every moment of beauty. Katya and I had chosen to live a life together, and we had been apart long enough.

Now, it was time to help her make her way back home. I realize, despite knowing what she will go through, that I cannot wait to see her again. I am pulsing with love.

As we enter the high school, I realize that Katya is not alone. Amongst the hoards of people who have been thrown around like paper dolls as the wind funneled through the roofless building, Katya lies with another woman, their fragile old-lady arms wrapped around each other. I almost smile—Katya, always slightly stubborn, probably resisted leaving our home, the one she loved so dearly. But I am glad she is not alone. This woman, who’s thin back looks so familiar, who’s gray hair is long and conjures up flashes of cornsilk--who is she?

“They’re together,” Bard says, and I can see he is as surprised and delighted as I am. Elaine. Had they reunited on earth, two widows who longed for something familiar from the past? Or was this just the way the story ended: finding each other in the same shelter in the final moments of life?

Katya and Elaine’s bodies are pressed together, and the sensation of terror has already faded—for this I am grateful. The worst of Inez is gone, and what remains from yet another hurricane is devastation. There are a lot of bodies, and we, the helpers, are spreading out now. Most of the occupants of the high school are near death but still alive. I see a man hovering over the bodies of the two old ladies, and Bard and I move swiftly.

It’s hard to describe with words. I cannot explain this homecoming. Katya and Elaine become whole and youthful as we reach for them, their smiles rich and full. They are no longer the elderly bodies they inhabited, only shining lights of their spirits. Love. And we are all together again.

Katya comes into me, and our souls merge as they haven’t been able to in so long, and yet, it feels like only seconds. Next to us, Bard and Elaine are rejoicing as well. In fact, all around us, reunions transpire, a stark contrast to the wreckage below us. But there is nothing we can do about that; that’s for the earthbound to figure out.

I breathe in Katya with such comfort and every beautiful moment of our life together seems to converge into this feeling of oneness. I glance at Bard and we collectively wonder where we should go, but there isn’t much deliberation. In seconds, we are all seated on a back porch in July, cold beers in hand and ready to catch up.

“So, here we are,” Bard begins, narrating as always. “Home at last.”