Grow

Rhodanthe tiptoed down the stairs, as though breaking the silence would break something precious and essential. She stood at the bottom of the staircase, still, but not frozen. Simply searching.

Things were just as she had left them, which should have been expected. She was the only one in the house. Had been the only one for days. It all looked different though, as if a new thing were present that hadn't been there before. Everything looked darker. Brilliant rather than bleached. One would think that less light would be a bad thing. Too much light could be a bad thing.

She thought of Garth and smiled. Her lips pulled of their own accord, and Rhodanthe let it happen, savoring. He was not worried, or anxious for contact. When she called him, he would be enthusiastic and joyous, grateful, yet with no expectations. So would she.

Who would have thought that the world could be made new for a woman her age?

This was not the world she grew up in, the one where smiling was an essential ingredient of fine breeding. Expectations grew like the cedars of Lebanon, chiseling claustrophobic pathways leading in the only acceptable direction, to the only approved destination. The path was so crowded with competing debs, that an elbow in a rib was an expected daily trial. A chop at the knees warranted careful retaliation. A gut punch should never show; annihilate the deliverer swiftly. Every step must come from the core of inner determination, under the veneer of perfection. They were the lucky, the privileged, the chosen.

Surprises were neither welcomed nor tolerated. The unexpected was beaten and folded in like egg whites. Sadness--well, hush.

Rhodanthe flourished in the well-tilled soil of her family roots. In a day and age where it was accepted for girls to venture out of the home and make a name, she had built a solid one. She married well. In the name of perfection, she bore a baby girl she adored and named Rosie, pushing away the dread she felt at having the responsibility to teach her the part she must play in this world she was borne into. Rhodanthe ran her business from home, and looked the other way when good sense plucked at the edges of her mind with a melody that demanded lyrics; she knew the song, but could not sing it. All good women stood behind their husbands, gazing off in directions that were safe.

She lost Rosie. One morning in the gray stillness of early morning she discovered the infant was not breathing. Had not been breathing.

Rhodanthe had not remembered taking a breath herself since. She allowed her automatic mind to do the right things, say the right things, and nudge her back into her work realm where she had control. Where she met Garth.

There was research to be done someday about what it is that draws two people together with some irresistible attraction. He arrived from the Boston office for a crucial meeting wearing blue jeans, a black sweater, loafers, no socks and the gray shadow of stubble because his plane had been been delayed and his luggage sent on a journey of its own. No one cared. Especially Garth. He wasn't there to look good. He was there to be persuasive and energetic and charismatic, and he was all those things. And more.

Rhodanthe had collapsed in relieved exhaustion once his arrival had been announced, and she spent the rest of the day watching him play his part, wondering how he learned to love it so. No one could act this way. Where did it come from? Maybe there was something about the North she didn't know. Maybe there was something she should learn. How?

Garth took care of that too. He had no qualms about asking her out for dinner. For several days they talked about nothing and everything. He went home. When she offered him a job, he came back and stayed.

He moved with care around her, as if he understood that spooking her would ruin everything. No one knew he could read her thoughts, her heart, her soul. Not even Rhodanthe, until he asked, and she bled tears, and he did not hush her. He did not tell her she should or shouldn't do anything. He just let her grief happen. For both of them.

The aftermath was confusion more horrendous than the shock of Rosie's death. This was the death of everything that ordered her world. Rhodanthe feared going crazy, and she feared the decisions that had to be made, the steps that had to be taken, the overwhelming sense of a disaster bearing down on her that she could neither control nor escape.

"You have to let it happen. Go away. Be sad. Be scared. The flower dies, the seed drops, life begins anew again. It happens that way. Let it," Garth told her.

"Where?"

"My father's cabin in the Smokies. I'll book the flight and the car."

"For both of us?"

"Not this time."

"What about all this?" Rhodanthe could see the stacks of papers, the appointment book, the telephone log as if it were spread out on a desk here for her now.

"I'll handle it. Go."

She had been sad for five days now. There was a comfort in melancholy, a balm in withdrawal, a healing in stillness. She slept when she felt like it. She woke when her body said it was time. She cried without caring if her eyes would be red and puffy. Meals were skipped, because there was no hunger. She didn't care if she went crazy.

In the twist and pitch of the out-of-control ride, Rhodanthe discovered she had been crazy her entire life. Normal was now. Nothing forced or controlled, just a human being living the emotions that all human beings were born with.

Receding storm waters left soil soft, fertile, ideal for new roots. A taproot would soon anchor her firmly in place, then she could reach for her sun. Energy lifted through the soles of her feet, massaged her heart, prodded her mind. Once the energy within, and the light from without met, a human being would flourish where once only a statue had been.