The Return of Brenda

It seems the days I wake up with the small indented lines on my face from my shriveled up PJ sleeves are the days I think the most. Not important thinking like how to solve world hunger from the basement of my suburban Missouri household, but instead thoughts of how different my life would have been had I stayed with Ollie 40 something years ago. Had I stayed with him like he requested, had I not left with James like my parents recommended I do. None of that mattered anymore considering I am well in my 60’s now and James had passed away from the horrors of lung cancer 2 years ago leaving me with nothing but empty bottomless thoughts. After lying in my bed I decide it's time to head down and make my black tea. It seems Remus had already beat me to it when I found his little whiskers sniffing near my tea bags. I give him a reassuring “good morning Remus, another day of a constant cycle” pat on the head, though I doubt he got all of that out of a simple hand movement. I’m so caught up in my thoughts that I barely notice the blanket of white laying on the trees, the back porch, the grill, the grass, and well everywhere. Snow reminds me of Ollie. We spent the summer together in Copper Mountain resort where I was dragged to by my parents since a family friend had just gotten a job there and we got free food, and rentals. We planned on a 1 month stay, but that quickly turned into a solid 2 and a half month stay. It was fun, there was food, skiing, snowboarding, sledding, and Ollie. It was there that I met Ollie who was an instructor. He was a year older than me, the basic charming, funny, kind, intriguing person that every young girl most likely took a second glance at. One morning, the first week I was there, I was at the top of a hill I was sitting on my neon green rental sled when I'm about to push off. Someone jumps onto the back of it and I'm startled like crazy. The sled ends up moving down the hill at top speed. We end up spinning out of control and hit one of those pine trees conveniently placed in the middle of the path. I remember hoisting my head of the snow and looking to see Ollie nearly laughing his socks off. We sat under that tree until noon talking about everything that came to our minds. From that day on we hung out every second of the day together. He asked me to be his girlfriend multiple times knowing very well that I had James, my boyfriend, back at home. I hated watching his blue eyes almost turn a shade darker every time I rejected him. But he still stayed close to me and with me most likely clinging to the hope that me and James would split. I would stay awake at night thinking about how easy it would be for me to just call James and end it so that me and Ollie could be together but my parents and friends said I would regret it, or that this was just a fling. But Ollie was Ollie, never dull. And James was James, very...James. Remus scratches at the door pulling me away from my throwback thoughts. 

“Remus. What did the door ever do to you” I'm about to pick him up when I look out the window on the side of my door and see a car parked in my driveway with a man stepping out of it. I'm not expecting anyone today, maybe my hair curlers I ordered from Amazon a week ago, but I doubt amazon started using Subaru Foresters as a new method of transportation. The man is carrying something. I can't tell what with my 60 year old eyeballs, but I'm intrigued and open the door before he can knock.

“Oh- why hello” the man says awkwardly. I stare at him seeing something familiar in his gaze.

“Hi there, sorry I saw you pull in and was curious” I say. “Do I know you?”

“Well that depends, are you Judy Gallaway?” I wonder how this man could know me.

“Why yes I am, and you are?” I ask cautiously

“It's- uh- Ollie Silver, see I don't know if you rem-”

“Oh my goodness” I cut in. We stare at each other. The silence was loud. 

“Please come in, it's cold out there” I break the silence wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans. I recognize his eyes. It was the eyes. He walks in and places the object he was carrying on the ground by my 2 year old cactus I got from my neighbor as a “hey sorry your husband died of cancer, but here's a plant to put a bandage on it!”. I was too busy watching him walk to notice what the object was. I follow him and watch him observe my mediocre kitchen specifically staring at the picture on my fridge of me and James. He turns to me 

“So you ended up together after all,” He said. He didn't say it in a snarky way, but more of a congratulations sort of way. 

“Yeah we did. But he passed away 2 years ago. Cancer.” I mention. He looks at me with regret but before he can give me the “I'm sorry for your loss” I change the subject “What brings you here, and if I may ask how did you find me?” He chuckles a little to himself 

“Well if I knew the answer to that question I would tell you. I never forgot about you after the time we spent together, and I’ve been looking for you since 2010. And when I finally got a hold of your address at first I didn't do anything, but yesterday I got in the car and just drove” He sits down in the bar stool and I pour him a cup of coffee, “I'm sorry to just show up, I should have called or emailed, or smoke signalled. I laughed remembering how sarcastic he always was. We chatted for at least 3 hours catching up on life. He never got married, but he raised his sister's 7 year old son after she and her husband passed away in a car accident. He worked his way up to some sort of manager at the Copper resort. I would catch myself observing him and not his stories. He still looks about the same 6’1 skinny pale blue eyes light brown hair with a mole above his left eyebrow, he was way more mature, but still had the teenage boy that I remember in him. Then out of the blue he asks

“Do you wanna go sledding?” I perk up and tilt my head

“What?” I grin.

“Well we first met in 1970 after an impulsive jump on the back of your sled at the top of that one hill I can't remember the name, and I think that this reunion deserves a celebration” I stand there wondering if he's serious.

“I don't have a sled though” I remark.

“No worries, I brought one” he smiled. So that was the mystery object. My mind said “your 60 years old you might break a bone” but my mouth blurted

“Sure let me go get changed” I walked up the stairs gripping the handle bar. I dug through some old boxes in the office and found my snow pants from the 70s. I prayed I still fit them, considering the amount of Oreo's I’ve devoured since then. I put on a sweater and some leggings with a hole at the knee and pulled the snow pants over the clothes. To my luck they crinkled over my clothes with ease and I hobbled down the stairs to see he was holding a sled, a neon green one just like the ones they had at the resort years ago.

“Is that a sled from Copper Mountain?” I asked walking towards the closet to grab gloves.

“Yes and not just any sled, it's our sled Brenda” I turned looking at him. 

“Actually? You’re kidding?!” I exclaim reaching for my boots.

“Nope! After you left I went through every sled we had to find out initials with the heart on the bottom just like we engraved that one night, and after I found it I kept it with me to remind me to find you one day”, he says looking into my eyes. I smile and shake my head.

“You are insane” we walk towards the back door and I slide it open, both of us stepping onto my back porch. I look down and watch my feet imprint the snow. They say that when one of your senses is lacking the others are amplified. It seems my sense of smell and hearing are turned up because of my lack of vision. When we began walking up the hill in my backyard which was small, but still long enough and steep enough for a good sled ride I noticed the smell and sound of the snowy setting. It seemed like everything was one. No boundaries to the neighbor's yard. You couldn't see the yellow grass in my backyard, and green grass in my neighbor’s yard which make an obvious line in the summer on whose side it is. Instead It looked like one long big rolling field of snow. Finally, after what seemed like centuries we reached the top. He looked at me and smiled and layed down Brenda the sled as we liked to call her. He let me sit down first reaching out his hand for me to use as a handle on my way down onto the sled. He took a seat behind me and he let me hold the rope while he held his hands on the hill to keep us from going down. Just like we did a million times in the summer of 1970.

“Okay on three I’ll lift my hands and you brace yourself” he said. “1...2...3” At first I was worried the hill wouldn’t be steep enough for us to catch any speed, but let me say I was wrong. We were going so fast I thought we were sitting in the car from Back To the Future and that we might end up stepping off of the sled in the future with flying cars. He held onto me and we laughed like the crazy kids we once were. I hadn’t done something this spontaneous since, well, the last time I was with him. The snowflakes that continued to fall around us landed on my eyelashes and face and I felt refreshed, and regenerated. When I’m with him I'm Judy. I’m happy, I'm free. I wanted to feel this way forever. We get to the bottom and Brenda slowly slows down. We look at each other and smile like kids, kids in love. “Again?” I ask

“Again,” he says.