JAKE: I have an idea for what you can do with Zac today
I rolled over and reached for my phone on the side of my bed. It was only eight in the morning.
JAKE: Sorry, did I wake you?
I sat up in bed and tried to type while fighting back a huge yawn.
LORI: Kind of. But I’m awake now
LORI: What’s your idea?
I climbed out of bed while Jake typed. I walked around my bedroom, opened the curtains, brushed my teeth, and got dressed all while he was still typing. I even made it down to the kitchen and was halfway through making a cup of coffee before the typing finally stopped and the message came through. And when it did, I smiled. Because this was the best idea anyone had ever had. And I couldn’t think of a better way to spend time with Zac on our last day together if I tried.
We drove for an hour and ten minutes before we reached our destination. On the way, we listened to music and talked about why no one had invented flying cars yet. We rounded the last bend and as we did, they came into view for the first time. Zac leaned forward and his eyes widened. He looked like he was going to jump out of his seat with excitement—in fact, I could see he was struggling to contain his emotions as he flapped his hands in the air.
“Wind turbines!” he yelled. “Wind turbines!”
“I know,” I said as I gawked at the massive steel giants that rose up into the air in front of us. Before we’d come, I’d done some reading so I could furnish him with facts that I knew he would like.
“Did you know,” I started, “that they stand almost a hundred meters tall?”
“How big is that?” Zac asked.
I smiled to myself. I knew he would ask this question. “You know how tall Ponte tower in Joburg is? Well, imagine cutting Ponte in half, that’s how tall they are!”
“Wooooow!” he declared. “That’s tall!”
We pulled up to the gate, and just as Jake had said, someone met us there. He introduced himself as Michael, one of the technicians, and was excited to give us a tour of the facility. But he definitely wasn’t as excited as my brother. Zac was like a kid in a candy store, in among the massive electricity-generating giants that turned slowly in the wind. His face was alive with excitement when Michael showed him inside the many rooms that contained more batteries and wires and knobs and switches than even Zac could handle. Zac asked a hundred questions about how the wind became electricity, how that got into your home, and into your microwave, and how the giants were built, how much they weighed, and if it was possible for him to make small ones for the beach outside his house, and if so, should he use wood and if wood, what kind of glue was best, or should he use a nail and hammer? The questions flew out of his mouth one after the other and I could see that Michael was really enjoying it. We ended the tour right underneath one of the giant turbines. Zac and I stood there and looked up. It dwarfed us. It was hard to imagine how something like this could have even been constructed. Zac looked up at it in silence, but I could see his brain was ticking away. He was probably trying to work out a million things at once while looking at it. The sun was behind us, and I looked at the ground as the massive shadows from the turbine whooshed across it.
“You know I’m leaving tomorrow to go to Paris?” I asked, my throat tightening a bit.
“Yes,” he said, sounding distant and far away, as if he wasn’t really listening.
“Well, you know what that means, right?”
“No,” he mumbled, not really paying me much attention.
“Look at me, Zac.” I moved in front of him so that I could get his attention. “Do you know what me going to Paris means?”
“That you won’t be home,” he replied.
“That’s right, I won’t be home that much. But I will come home on the holidays,” I said. “And we can Skype as much as you like.”
He looked at me for the longest time, and like most times, I had no idea what he was thinking.
“Who will give me my water bottle when you’re gone to make sure I don’t get dehydrated?” he asked. And that was it, my heart felt like it broke into a million tiny little pieces. This wasn’t his fault, though. It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t express himself the way I wanted him to. And maybe that was selfish of me to expect. But I couldn’t help it: I wanted him to throw his arms around me and hug me. I wanted him to tell me how much he would miss me and how much he loved me. But instead, he folded his arms over his chest and looked up at the turbine.
“Mom will give you your water bottle,” I said, fighting back the tears. “I’ll make sure of that.”
“I only like the blue one,” he said, still looking up.
“I know, I’ll make sure she has the blue one.”
I reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off, not angrily, but because the feeling irritated him and he was utterly engrossed in the thing in front of him.
I walked away from him a little; I didn’t want him to see that I was crying now. I was crying because I would miss him so much. I was crying because I loved him more than anything, and even though I knew he loved me, I knew he would never really be able to show me that, like other people did. I was crying because I also knew that my mother had been right. I’d been living my life for him for many years now, and as hard as it would be, I needed to let go.
I needed to learn to live without him. All these years I’d thought that I had given more to Zac than he’d given to me, that I’d been the one looking after him. But in reality, I’d needed him just as much as he’d needed me, and in many ways, he’d been looking after me too.