Speed Free My Soul

Leo climbed into the passenger side of the black Honda. Joseph Lightfoot took in the defeated slump of her shoulders and the swollen tissue around her eyes, the likes of which he had not seen in his daughter since Sandy, her childhood dog, died. He knew what he had to do. “It is not complicated,” Jennifer explained, “be present and listen, truly listen. Don’t minimize, don’t try to analyze or fix anything, be there for her.” Joseph took a deep breath, leaned over, and turned off the radio, looking at Leo fully, his eyes questioning.

She turned slightly, reached back, and grabbed the seat belt, clicking it into place. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Her puffy, reddened eyes rose to meet him.

“Oh, thank goodness,” his response was a spontaneous utterance of relief that he tried to pull back. This was not what Jennifer meant by being supportive. He smiled apologetically. Leo couldn’t help it, looking at her father awkwardly, trying his best. A soft sound, somewhere between a chortle and a sob, responded. Grateful to see anything that approximated a laugh, he reached over, gave her a quick hug, and turned the radio back on.

Order was restored. This was their old pattern and what the Lightfoot household did best, acting as if nothing happened. Jennifer would be disappointed in him, but he tried. Despite being exceedingly uncomfortable, he knew he’d been ready, and if his daughter were willing, he would have listened. But now, Leo’s wounds were fresh, the hemorrhaging hadn’t abated, and he granted her space.

He wished he could scoop her up as he had when she was a child, kiss away the tears, take her for ice cream, anything to ease her anguish. Joseph knew about loss. He knew how when grief is fresh and overwhelming, you think you will never be able to see your way out and how it is only after the ebbing of time that you can tap into inner calm. A peace pulled from pain.

When they entered Tahlequah’s city limits, the mustard yellow-smeared horizon gave way to a sky saturated with deep horseradish green. Leaves, pushed by gusts, assaulted the windshield.

“Leo, looks like a front is moving in. Twisters in October happen, and the weather conditions are prime. Why don’t you spend the night with us, and I’ll drop you off tomorrow.”

“I need to get home to Echo. I don’t want her to think I completely abandoned her. And I need to be alone for a while to decompress and figure things out.” She looked at her father’s visage. “I have everything there that I need, Dad. And if worse comes to worst, I have the storm cellar. Uncle Paul has stocked up like a doomsday prepper. I’ll be okay, I really will.”

What could he do? She was an adult, living independently and making her own decisions. He reluctantly drove away, watching through the rearview mirror as Leo raced across the yard toward her river stone house, dragging her backpack behind her.

****

“Echo! Echo!” Leo called and gave a high-pitched whistle. The winds gathered in their ferocity, tiny hail pellets bit into her flesh.

Please be okay. I’ll never forgive myself if anything happened to you while I was off gallivanting. Please don’t leave me like Sandy. I should have learned my lesson then.

As she was about to cross the threshold, Leo abruptly stopped. Around the house, worn into the ground, was a circular dirt trail that hadn’t been there before she left. Her heart sank. She knew what this meant. Echo had worn the grass away, leaving a footpath like a caged tiger at the zoo, pacing back and forth, wearing a groove in the earth along the fence line, looking for freedom that would never come. Around and around the house, she must have frantically run, searching, sniffing, for the direction in which Leo had left, grinding her bestial truth into the ground. Her dog, the one Leo had spent months trying to gain her trust, now thought she had been deserted, forgotten. What have I done? Leo reached down, taking a handful of the earth as if she could divine something from the soil. From her throat came a keening wail. Long and full of anguish, the sound carried across the field into the dense grove of trees until inhaled by the turbulent sky.

An eerie calm descended. At first, Leo thought the quiet was within, as if all she had was spent as if she had finally been sucked empty. But the silence pervaded all. The world was suddenly still. She looked up across the field toward the forest. The prairie grass no longer whipped, the treetops no longer snapped, and the flying leaves ceased. The absence of sound and movement was a vacuum. Until, out of the undergrowth flew a sleek, copper creature, and on Echo’s heels, an unleashed violent energy followed—the sound of an unstoppable, quickly approaching locomotive.

“Echo!” Leo cried as the shaking dog flew into her arms, “Come on, girl! Let’s go!”

She ran through the bowing pine door, barreling toward the storm cellar. She flung the hatch open.

****

The military transmutes your relationship with death. Before each deployment, you write a farewell letter to loved ones and craft your will. You meet death in person, watch the blackness devour your compatriots, run your hands along the bulging underbelly and smell its eviscerated bowels. All the while feeling its hot, fetid breath against your skin. I am so close, death whispers, just around the corner, you might be next. Dying is the possibility that never leaves. Awareness of its closeness becomes part of your psyche.

Ray pressed down on the accelerator. Not caring about the raging wind and driving rain, he sped over the curving country road, following the headlight beams as they sliced through a screen of infinite darkness. With each bend, each turn, the lights illuminated immediate pockets of his fragmented existence. Failure as a brother, check. Failure as a son, check. Each pass could be his last. Failure as a battle buddy, check. Would a deer be around the next corner, a semi-truck hogging both lanes or a fallen tree? He did not care. The only thing he’d ever done right was being a soldier. Then his life had a purpose. A profound sense of duty overrode everything like a higher calling. Now there was a floundering, an endless cord of suffering. When did meaning ever rise from empty despair? There would be relief in the end, absolute and all-encompassing. It was all he wanted. Let it be over. Just end it now.

A growing light appeared in the distance until a bend in the pavement altered his direction. The flashing was gone, reappearing as he turned west again, growing more prominent as he barreled forward, leaving the winding descent behind him. Accelerating over the open expanse of land, the light beckoned. This is it, game over. If only I can get to the railroad crossing before the train in time to stop on the tracks. He pushed the accelerator to the floor.

The lights flashed red, back and forth, even as the warning dings and train whistle grew louder. The crossing arms, which were mere stubs amputated from a prior accident, seemed ready to embrace him. “I’m sorry,” Ray yelled into the darkness. “I’m sorry that I was such an utter failure at everything in life—speed free my soul.”

****

Curled in the tightest of balls, Echo slept by Leo’s side. Occasionally a tiny whimper would rise as her defined muscles and curled paws trembled in sleep. Leo gently stroked the curve of her back. “It’s okay, girl.” The creature stilled under her touch. Leo was prepared for the inevitable power outage. She found an air-tight container of Uncle Paul’s emergency long burning candles and lit enough to illuminate their resting place.

The darkness of the storm shelter was relegated to the furthermost corners. Hours ago, a can of tuna for Echo and a can of corn for Leo had served as dinner. Now Leo was sitting crossed-legged on the blanketed mattress; another covering lay over her knees as she carefully went through photographs. She had found a shoebox full of them tucked underneath the shelving. Uncle Paul’s stashed pictorial history of the Lightfoot men started when he was in high school, and her dad had been a mere five years old. She shuffled through them slowly, scrutinizing each one for clues of lives lived before her arrival. Then there was a sharp intake of breath, the smallest of gasps.

Echo’s head shot up, golden eyes quickly assessing Leo’s body language and reading her face. Are we on the move again? Do we need to be on heightened alert? Is there a rabbit nearby? “Sorry for disturbing you, girl. It’s just that I found some pictures of my mom.” Echo tilted her head slightly, listening to the cadence of Leo’s voice. “I’ve never seen these before.” Echo’s tail thumped the mattress as Leo scratched behind her silky ears. She stretched her lean, ropy body out, and with a deep doggy sigh, she put her head down in Leo’s lap.

There were only a few of them. In one, her young and handsome father was grinning while he gazed proudly at a blotchy newborn face cradled in his arms. One large hand cupped the soft, downy head protectively. The infant, tiny matchstick legs sticking out, was swimming in her onesie. Next to him, close to his side but not touching, stood her mother. Her head was turned to face away from them, a distant, detached look in her eyes. The photo must have been taken after her dad brought her home from the hospital on one of Emily’s first visits. Leo touched the smooth surface of the print with her fingertip, tracing the outlines of a fledgling family that would not stand the test of time.

She brought the photo closer, trying to discern what her mother had been thinking. Leo had missed her mother so often over the years that the concept of her had become a living organism, and Leo had woven this narrative into the texture of her being. But how could you miss something you never knew? How could this still be so defining of how she saw herself? Motherless, unlovable. That’s pretty messed up, Leo thought as she picked up another snapshot. This one, like the last, was faded; the colors leached away. Only now, the baby was a squirming toddler, two years old, possibly three. Again, she was in his arms, wearing only a diaper. The dark-haired little girl was laughing and looking sunny side up toward her father, and she had her arms stretched as if trying to wrap them around his neck or touch the sky. While her father held his daughter aloft in his left arm, he had his right arm in an easy loop around Emily’s shoulder, and there was no mistaking his look as he stared adoringly at the slender, auburn-haired woman. She, in turn, clad in stark white shorts and a tight tank top, was looking straight ahead. Leo regarded the picture thoughtfully, then reached over to bring a candle nearer for further examination. The light flickered across the images.

In her mother’s features, was a focused intensity Leo hadn’t seen before. But it wasn’t just in her vibrant eyes or the flushed edges of her face. The secret was in her Mona Lisa smile. Emily was in love, not with the man holding her daughter, not the man who stood by her side, but with someone else. Her love shone through the picture, channeled directly into the camera lens, reaching beyond to the person behind the 35mm monocle.

Oh, snap, Leo thought, not wanting to disrupt Echo’s sleep again. Emily had been in love with Paul. Had her uncle returned that love? Had her father known? She thinks back to their conversation in Tulsa, along the Riverwalk, the night they celebrated Leo getting her GED, and she asked him, do you think there was another man? Her father paused, then had said, “No, at least I don’t think so.”

****

When he regained consciousness, the rain was falling with such velocity that the cracked glass looked like it was bending. What happened? Ray touched his throbbing forehead. Blood stained his fingers crimson. He remembered jamming on the brakes so he would be in the tracks, ready for a life-ending impact. But he braked a fraction of a second early, just as the tires hit the upward lip of the tracks. The vehicle caught air, left the ground, and landed on the other side, his head slamming into the windshield. The pain was debilitating. And he realized he was so far down the rabbit hole he could no longer see any light. I am in trouble, he thought.

The train hurtled by. The railroad track irons shuddered as it passed.