Running Barefoot

15. Parody



The following morning I arose early as usual, pulling on my running shoes, slipping on my shorts and a t-shirt, and pulling my hair up in a ponytail. I took a forkful of chocolate cake, chugged down some orange juice, and walked out into the morning. Lying on the mat in front of the door was a thick manila envelope. Written across it in neat caps, someone had written ‘JOSIE’. I picked it up and turned it over. It was heavy, and I tested it in my hands curiously. I had ordered some piano books for some new students, but this wasn’t addressed or postmarked. Someone had set it on the mat early this morning, or maybe even late last night.

Curiously, I peeled the seal and pulled out the contents. Inside were stacks of sealed legal sized white envelopes, all with my name written across them in the same handwriting as the writing on the front of the manila envelope. I sank down on the porch swing and pulled one out. Turning it over, I saw a date written across the back: 8-19-1999. I pulled out another one. Another date was scrawled across the back. Swiftly, I pulled out all the letters, finding them ordered according to their date. Suddenly, I knew what they were. The first date was June 5, 1999, about a year after Samuel left Levan.

My heart pounded and my blood felt icy in my veins. Reverently, with shaking hands, I opened the one on the top of the pile. It picked up where his last letter, so long ago, had left off. He confessed his agony at not being able to respond to me, asking me over and over again to forgive him. Samuel had written me dozens of letters. Most of them were from the first year - maybe that was when he felt the most alone. But they continued on, though the following years. There was a letter written on 9-11-2001. I had thought of him when the towers were hit, wondering where he was, or if he would be sent somewhere. When the U.S. had invaded Iraq, I had watched the television - wondering if Samuel was among those first Marines sent in. Apparently he’d thought of me too.

I read several of Samuel’s letters, standing there on the front porch, and marveled at the places he’d been and the things he’d seen and done. He told me about the books he’d read. I noticed many of them were ones I had read, and some of them were books I hadn’t heard of. There was a definite loneliness in many of them, but a confidence and sense of purpose was present as well. I abandoned my run and went back upstairs to my room. Running could wait. I had some catching up to do.





I walked out into the front yard a few mornings later, the screen door banging behind me. It wouldn’t wake Dad - he was already up looking after the horses. I sniffed hopefully, trying to smell fall in the air, but sadly got a whiff of summer leftovers instead. I leaned down and re-tied my running shoes, wiggling my toes.

I meandered out to the road and faced my mountains wreathed in sunrise. I breathed and raised my arms high above my head, stretching and arching and working out my morning kinks.

“You look like Changing Woman greeting the Sun.” A voice spoke immediately to my left.

I was startled, and my arms dropped to my sides as I whirled around. “Oh! Samuel!” I cried out. “You scared me!”

“I’m a sneaky indian, what can I say?”

I looked into his face. It was the kind of thing he would have said at eighteen - but it would have been laced with bitterness. This time he just smiled a little and shrugged. He had on a pair of faded Levis and his worn cowboy boots again. His black t-shirt, with Semper Fi written in white print across the front, fit snugly across his powerful chest and shoulders. His dark hair, military short and spiky, was still wet like he’d just climbed out of the shower. He looked like my Samuel, but not. For many months after he left the first time, I had quietly cried myself to sleep, unwilling to admit to anyone how my youthful heart had ached in his absence. I had missed him terribly. I’d had so few friends, and I knew how rare he was, this friend who was truly a kindred spirit. When he’d left the second time, I had been hurt and angry and had done all I could not to think about him. My heart twisted painfully at the memory, and I swiftly redirected my attention to the man who stood before me, in the present.

“Changing Woman and the Sun ... is that a Navajo story?” I resumed my stretching, trying to portray a casualness I did not feel.

“It’s a Navajo legend. Changing Woman is thought to be the child of the Earth and the Sky. She is closely tied to the circle of life, the changing of the seasons, the order of the universe. She was created when First Man shook his medicine bag repeatedly at the holy mountain. Days later, Changing Woman was found on the top of the mountain. First Man and First Woman taught her and raised her.

“One day Changing Woman was out walking and she met a strange young man whose brilliance dazzled her so much she had to look away. When she turned back towards him he was gone. This happened two more times. She went home and told First Man and First Woman what had happened. They told her to make her bed outside that night with her head facing east. While she slept, the young man came and lay beside her. She awoke and asked him who he was. He said, “Don’t you know who I am? You see me every day. I am all around you. In my presence you were created.” She realizes he is the sun’s inner form. In order to see him each day, she went to live by the Pacific Ocean so that when the sun set on the water he could visit her.”

We were quiet for a moment. The birds started warbling, and I wished they would be still. The silence was silky without them.

“She must have been lonely waiting for him to come see her.” I hadn’t meant to speak out loud, and wondered where my sentiment had sprung from.

“She was.” Samuel eyed me quizzically. “According to legend, she was so lonely for companionship that she created the Navajo people from the flakes of her skin, rubbed off different parts of her body.”

The story was strangely sensual, the beautiful young woman, waiting each day for the Sun to come to her. I gazed up at the rising orb and closed my eyes as I lifted my face to its warmth.

“What do you listen to while you run?” Samuel nodded towards the ipod strapped to my bicep.

The memories of sharing my precious symphonies with him on that bumpy bus bombarded me. I remembered our heartfelt and intimate discussions of ‘God’s music,’ and I turned from him realizing I didn’t want him to know what I listened to when I ran. I stretched back and pulled my right foot up behind me, stretching my quad, pretending I hadn’t heard him. He reached over and took the phones from my ears, stuck one in his own, and pushed play on the iPod. After a moment he grimaced.

“This is electronic music. The kind you’d hear at a club or an aerobics class! Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom.” He pounded his foot for effect. “The same repeated phrases over and over again. Synthesizers!” He said in mock horror.

“I run with it to keep a steady pace,” I defended myself, chagrined, yanking the earbud out of his ear.

He stared at me thoughtfully, his head tilted, considering. “You run with it so that you don’t have to think,” he answered finally.

I glared at him, stung that he had so easily guessed the truth – at least partially. I listened to the electronic music so I didn’t have to feel.

I didn’t want to explain that to him. I resorted to walking away.

Samuel quickly caught up to me. I picked up my pace and started to jog. He started to jog with me. His cowboy boots clopped loudly as we ran. I sped up. So did he. I ran full out for a mile, stretching my legs, knowing he had to be dying in those boots. He didn’t complain, but ran with me, stride for stride. I ran another mile. Then two more. My lungs burned. I had never run this fast. He didn’t seem winded.

“What do you want, Samuel!” I turned on him suddenly, skidding to a halt. “You’re going to hurt yourself running in those boots!” He stopped and looked down into my flushed face. He put his hands on his hips, and I was gratified to see his chest rising and falling, indicating some exertion.

“I’m a Marine, Josie AND I am Navajo, an Earth-walker. I am Samuel of the Bitter Water People.” He grinned, his eyebrows wagging devilishly. He leaned into me and said slyly, “Therefore you can’t outrun me - even when I’m wearing shitkickers.” He used the Levan slang for cowboy boots, and it made me laugh despite myself. My laughter seemed to please him.

“Where is ‘Ode to Joy’, Josie?” He said, ever so softly.

My eyes flew to his, startled. He remembered the music that had once so moved me that I could not go a day without its company.

Again, I felt at a loss for words. When I’d seen Samuel last I was a girl and he was a man. He’d pretty much rejected me outright. I hadn’t written to him again. I had occasionally asked his grandma about him, wanting news, wanting to hear how he fared. The problem was nobody but Samuel and I truly knew of the bond we had struck. It was encapsulated inside those trips back and forth across the ridge, day after day, with kids talking, laughing, and arguing all around us. Nobody was ever aware of our conversations, our discoveries, our shared moments. His grandma had given me generalities, but never knew to share more with me, never knew how much I desperately wanted to know - and I had been unwilling and unable to explain my interest. Knowing how private and careful Samuel had been, I was pretty certain he hadn’t asked about me. Yesterday, he said Nettie had told him what she knew, but Nettie only knew what was on the surface, just details.

“The truth is Samuel, you and I don’t know each other at all anymore.” My voice came out a little more bitterly than I had intended, and the words stung my lips.

He studied me for a minute, but didn’t reply. Wordlessly we began walking back towards our neighboring houses. We had made a wide loop when we ran, and we weren’t very far from home. I walked alongside him, feeling raw and wrung out.

The silence was strained, and I longed to escape. Nearing his grandparent’s house he spoke again.

“You ran in the wrong direction.”

“What?”

“You ran west this morning - away from the sun. The Navajo always run east - into the sun, greeting the sun. Lift up your face and let the Sky Father shine down a blessing upon you as you run towards him.”

I didn’t know how to respond. I’d always had to twist Samuel’s arm to tell me anything about his Navajo traditions. Now he was sharing legends and stories with absolute comfort. He had changed.

Samuel’s eyes were grave. “Changing Woman is called Changing Woman because she grew up so fast. The legend claims she became a full grown woman in only twelve days. She wasn’t a child for very long. I guess in that way you are just like her. You weren’t a child very long either. At thirteen you were far wiser and more mature than anybody I knew, except for my Grandma Yazzie.” Samuel paused, his eyes drilling down into mine. “Changing Woman is also called Changing Woman because she is responsible for the ever moving cycle of life - but in her heart, in her spirit, she is as steady and constant as the sun she loves.”

I shook my head, bemused.

“The truth is, Josie,” Samuel began his sentence just as I had several minutes before. “You’re a full grown woman now. But I don’t think you’re really all that different here.” Samuel lightly touched the smooth skin exposed by the open V of my t-shirt, laying his knuckles against my heart. “I think you’re still you. And I’m still the Samuel you knew.” His fingers were warm on my skin, and I fought myself not to reach up and cover his hand with my own.

Then he dropped his hand, and it was his turn to walk away.





Over the last few years I’d raised my prices and made a name for myself as a piano teacher. In the summer, I taught piano lessons almost exclusively and made decent money doing it. I’d never had to resort to house calls. I was by far the best pianist around, and I had no children, no husband, no other demands on my time and attention. I had students as far north as Provo, and as far south as Fillmore, almost an hour away in each direction, and they came to me. At home, my piano still stood faithfully in the exact same place it had since I purchased it through the Penny Pincher ad, but even after Dad had gone back to work after his stroke, I hadn’t taught lessons on it. I still used the room in the church for that. I loved the old building; I’d even been entrusted with my very own key. Dad and I needed a quiet place to come home to, without the endless stream of students and the necessary noise that accompanied their learning.

When fall came and school started, schedules changed and my lessons filled the after school hours from 3:00-6:00. From September to May, I spent my mornings down at Louise’s shop listening to gossip and cutting hair. Louise had a steady clientele; being the only shop in town for twenty years has its advantages. Over the last couple of years she’d been more then happy to shoo a few folks my way, though more often then not, she kept her women clients, who had become attached to her as women are prone to do with their hairstylists. I mostly cut the children’s hair, the men’s hair, and had once even trimmed Iris Peterson’s miniature poodle, Vivvi.

September is typically a beautiful month throughout the West - the light is softer, the temperatures abate, the sky is often impossibly blue, and a hint of color starts to tempt the trees with autumn. August had left Levan with an angry huff, leaving heat in its wake, and I was ready for September’s cooler head to prevail. Fall was my favorite season, and I was eager to smell it and feel it on my skin. Unfortunately, as I walked the mile to Louise’s that morning I saw no sign of it. The yellow sundress I had put on that morning (because it reminded me of yellow autumn leaves) now mirrored a persistent summer sun, and I picked up my pace to escape its rays.

I slammed into the shop with a sigh, the screen door whooshing behind me, Louise’s bell tinkling above me. The cool air that hit me felt like salvation, and I closed my eyes and lifted my damp blonde curls off my neck so the fan whirring by the door could blow directly on my skin.

“Good mornin’, Sunshine,” Louise drawled, with a smile in her voice.

“Good morning, Louise,” I sighed again, my eyes still closed and my head still bowed in grateful worship to the humming fan.

“When yer done prayin’ you can say hello to Nettie and Samuel, too.”

My head jerked up, and my eyes flew open at the mention of Samuel’s name. Nettie was sitting in Louise’s pink swivel chair, patiently reading a magazine with Julia Roberts on the cover while Louise rolled her hair in little pink pin curlers.

“Good morning, Nettie,” I said lightly, my eyes darting to see Samuel leaning against the wall next to the swinging doors that led into the general store.

“Good morning, Samuel,” I said, striving again for lightness. Instead my voice squeaked a little, and Louise looked at me quizzically.

Samuel dipped his head slightly, and Nettie spoke up, never lifting her eyes from the glossy pages. “Samuel wants a trim, Josie, if you don’t have anything scheduled right away.”

“She doesn’t,” Louise supplied without hesitation, and she and Nettie looked over at me expectantly.

“Certainly, Samuel,” I tried not to stammer. “Right this way.”

I walked quickly to my station and pulled a black apron over my dress, tying it swiftly and trying to control the nervous heat that pooled in my stomach. I couldn’t understand why I felt so off kilter when he was around me. I hadn’t seen him since we’d ended up running together yesterday morning. Part of me desperately wanted to avoid him, part of me was intensely happy to see him again.

I turned, expecting him to be behind me, and met his gaze across the room where he still leaned unmoving, watching me with an undecipherable expression on his face. In a fluid and easy manner he shifted his weight and walked towards me. Again, I felt the sensation of butterflies dancing in my belly and wished I’d foregone breakfast.

He folded his length into the pink chair, and I levered the chair downward so I could lower his head back into the sink. I made myself busy, not looking into his face. I tested the water temperature and slid a towel beneath his neck so the water wouldn’t drip into his shirt when he sat up. I focused on his thick black hair and the deceptive silkiness of its texture in my hands. The water was warm as it rushed through my fingers and I massaged the shampoo into his scalp. There is something about washing another person’s hair that is very nurturing, and the caregiver in me normally enjoyed the simple act of service. I took pleasure in the sighs of contentment that were invariably expressed. Most people closed their eyes and relaxed under my gentle hands.

Samuel kept his eyes opened and trained on my face. I tried desperately to avoid his gaze. It made the act of molding my hands to his head incredibly intimate, and I longed to shut my own eyes to relieve the tension his perusal was creating between us. I tried to distract myself with thoughts of Kasey. I had never kissed Kasey with my eyes open…I’d never even thought about it. I’d always closed my eyes and enjoyed the sensation of his lips on my lips. I wondered if Samuel would kiss me with his gaze locked with mine. I grimaced inwardly and chastised myself, mortified at the direction of my thoughts. I didn’t want him to kiss me! He was infuriating and inquisitive and exhausting, and I wished he would go away!

I rinsed his hair with fervor and shut off the water with a frustrated yank. Levering furiously, I sat him up and briskly rubbed the towel over his hair.

“You seem angry,” he said smoothly. I wanted to slap him. I was angry. Ridiculously and desperately angry. Why did he have to come back? I didn’t want to deal with old feelings that brought fresh pain. I was through loving people who would only leave. I met his eyes furiously in the mirror and saw a humbling compassion in their depths. My anger slipped off me like a soiled silk dress. My hands grew still in his hair, and my eyes held the gaze of my old friend.

“I’m sorry, Samuel. I have behaved very badly since you returned,” I confessed in a whisper. “I can’t seem to get my balance, and I’m not sure why.” I fell quiet, trying to control my unruly emotions. “Will you please forgive me?”

He studied me for a moment before he spoke, which was his way. “Lady Josephine, there is nothing to forgive.” I laughed a little as the memory of my childish wish resurfaced.

“Thank you, Sir Samuel,” I curtsied deeply, and with clippers in hand, finished trimming his hair in silence. When I was done, he tipped me well, offered his grandmother his arm, and left without a word.





I walked wearily home from the church that evening after teaching piano lessons to some very uninspired and obstinate children. There was no joy in teaching unwilling students. I thought of the quiet house that would greet me. Dad would be on shutdown shift for one more week - and the evening ahead would be spent alone. I felt unusually melancholy at the prospect, and was cheered by thoughts of the leftover chocolate birthday cake from my “party” Sunday evening. I felt twenty-three going on fifty.

As I neared my house I saw Samuel sitting on my porch in the shadow of the overhang. He rocked slowly in the big wooden swing my dad had fashioned for my mom many years before. I tamped down the telltale flip of my traitorous heart as I approached him. I didn’t have the energy for Samuel right now. Exhaustion descended on my soul and I considered feigning sickness. But in light of my apology earlier that day, I did not want to seem hostile. I sat down next to him on the swing and greeted him with a tired smile.

“Why do you cut hair, Josie?” Samuel said without preamble.

“Why not?” I was immediately flustered - couldn’t he just say ‘hello’ like a normal person?

“When I drove my grandmother to the beauty shop today I had no idea you would be there. Imagine my surprise when I saw you walk in. Then my grandma says to you “Samuel needs a haircut,” as if you work there. I was completely floored. You walked back and put the apron on, and I almost thought the three of you were having a little fun at my expense. But then you looked back at me, and I could see you weren’t kidding.”

“Was it really so hard to believe?” I slipped off my sandals and stretched my arches, my toes with their pink toenails pointing and flexing in relief.

“Yes,” he clipped, with no embellishment.

“Why?” I almost laughed in disbelief at the tightness in his eyes, the grim set to his mouth.

“Did you always want to work at “Ballow’s Do’s?”

I was hurt by the mockery I heard in his voice and didn’t answer him. His shook his head, and there was frustration in his expelled breath.

“Do you remember Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess?”

I laughed in disbelief. “I can’t keep up with you Samuel!” I cried. “One moment you are being snide about my work, and the next you’re asking me about classical music!”

“Do you remember the piece?” He insisted.

“Yes! But I’m a little surprised that you do!” It was my turn to be snide, and I felt childish in my attempt. “It was a favorite of mine,” I added in a more conciliatory tone. He glowered at me for a minute.

“Come here.” Samuel grabbed my hand tightly, yanking me to my feet. Then he was striding across the grass, pulling me behind him.

“Samuel! My shoes!” I yelped as I tried to keep up with him. As we neared the gravel he swept me up and into his arms, marching across the sharp rocks without a hitch in his step. I sputtered and squeaked, clinging to his neck for purchase. His truck was parked in front of his grandparent’s house across the street about half a block down. I felt ridiculous being carried down the middle of the road. He opened the passenger door to his black Chevy truck, slid me in unceremoniously, and shut the door with a bang.

He climbed in and backed out, gravel spitting up behind us, and roared down the street towards the mountain that jutted up into the sky not a mile from town.

I stared at him in wonder. “Can I ask where we are going without my shoes?”

For once his eyes were not glued to my face, but were fixed intently before him as he began to ascend into the pretty little canyon with the unattractive name we called Chicken Crick.

He didn’t answer me but drove until he found a little turnoff that looked out over the town. The teenagers in the valley regularly used it as a trysting spot. The ledge wasn’t high, and the town lay just below us, surrounded by the patchwork quilt of farmland, softened by the burnished glow of the approaching twilight seeping over the mountains to the west. The big wheeled sprinklers ran in long rows across the gold and green fields, the water from their spray creating little rainbows in the setting sun. Samuel rolled to a stop facing the breathtaking view, and silence flooded the cab of his truck. He sat for a minute, contemplating the rosy splendor before us. He reached over and pushed some of the buttons on his console. I recognized Pavane for a Dead Princess, immediately. I should have known. The music spilled out of the speakers, tiptoeing up my arms and legs, raising gooseflesh on my arms. So beautiful, so melancholy, so.... intrusive. I folded my arms across my stomach and held myself tightly. I was intensely grateful when Samuel spoke.

“I think I told you that my Navajo grandfather was a Marine in World War II. He was a code talker. He lied about his age when the recruiter came to the reservation. He had heard about the special program they were experimenting with, using the Navajo language to create a code that could not be cracked by the Japanese or the Germans. He was only 16-years-old when he signed up, but spoke relatively good English, so he was a shoe-in. The Navajo code talkers actually created the code using Navajo words to describe military operations - like the word for bombs was a-ye-shi, which meant eggs in Navajo. The word they used for the United States was ne-he-mah, which means ‘our mother.’ They also created a code alphabet by taking an English letter, thinking of an English word that started with that letter, and then using the Navajo word that means the same thing. For instance, ant stood for the letter “A”. The Navajo word for ant is wol-la-chee. So the word wol-la-chee meant “A” in the code. The word for “B” was shush, which meant bear in English. The language of the Navajo was so unique that it just sounded like gibberish to the code crackers.”

“I never knew this!” I said in wonder. I had never heard of the Navajo code talkers.

“The Navajo code talkers were asked to keep quiet about the code, in case it was needed in future wars, so after the war the American population knew very little about their role in the battles throughout the Pacific.”

“That is fascinating! Your language helped save our country! What an incredible honor!” I had forgotten the pain of the beautiful music, which had changed to ‘Traumerei’ by Schumann.

His mouth turned up slightly as he looked at me, listening to my glowing response. “Yes, it was an honor... I didn’t think so when I was an angry young half-breed. I thought the belegaana, the white man, just used my grandfather and others like him. Used them, and then spit them back out when they were done - out of sight, out of mind. I asked my grandpa why he was so proud of his service. He told me this country is the country of his forefathers. His ancestors lived here long before the white man - it is our country as much as any man’s and we have to defend her. He also said he made many friends among the white marines. He had a belegaana bodyguard…someone assigned to him to look out for him and keep him alive, because it was so critical that he not be killed or captured by the enemy. Without the code talkers, there wasn’t a safe way to communicate, and the enemy would have loved to get their hands on one of them and torture them to reveal the code. He said this belegaana Marine saved his life over and over again, at risk to his own. That is why I was named Samuel. I was named after Samuel Francis Sutorius, a Marine from the Bronx, who my grandfather could not speak of without weeping.”

Again we sat silent - moved by the story, lulled by the music.

So......your middle name is Francis?” I snickered and pinched him affectionately.

“Yes, Josie JO Jensen, it is.”

“Ahhhh,” I moaned theatrically, “You would wound the small-town girl who longs for a classic name?”

Samuel smiled softly, but his voice was grave when he spoke. “You were never small-town, Josie.” He shook his head to underscore his words. “You always had this light that made you seem like royalty... such an incredible mind, such beauty and humility. You took my breath away, time after time, day after day, on that smelly old school bus.”

The lump in my throat made it impossible for me to speak, and I blinked away the wetness in my eyes. He continued:

“The day of the rainstorm, when you realized it was me, your big blue eyes lit up, and I wanted to swing you around and laugh. I couldn’t wait to talk to you and listen to you, and see what you’d read, and finally hear you play again.”

Samuel stopped talking, and his eyes locked on mine. “But you were so sad ... and I felt the loneliness pouring off you when you put your arms around me - it was as wet as the rain, and I knew you were changed somehow. You were different.

“I was angry with you when I heard that silly music that you listen to while you run. I was angry that you seemed so resistant to the things that had once made you so radiant. And today! There you are, working in that little shop, cutting people’s hair, ignoring your gift! Here in this small town that keeps you hidden . . . a princess acting like a pauper, and I just can’t figure it out.”

My face flushed, and I felt as if I’d been slapped. “Is that what this is about, Samuel? ‘Pevane for a Dead Princess!’ So, I’m the dead princess? Am I not good enough for you anymore? Where would you have me go, Samuel? What do you want me to do?” I cried out in wounded disbelief. “I loved music and books partly because I wanted to escape, to leave this town for bigger and better things. But I can’t let my music to take me away from everything I love, everything I have left!”

“So what changed, Josie?!!” Samuel’s voice was as impassioned as my own. “You’ve just turned off the music? You used to say that Beethoven made you feel alive, made the mysteries of God seem attainable. You said you could feel your mother when you listened to your music. Like you knew she was out there somewhere, living on. Has that changed? Don’t you want to feel your mother anymore?”

“When I listen to beautiful music, I can’t just feel my mother now. I feel other things, too,” I groaned out the words and pressed my hands to my feverish cheeks.

“I don’t understand!” Samuel pulled my hands from my face and pulled my chin up, forcing me to meet his glittering gaze. “Why is that a bad thing?”

“The music makes me feel too much! It makes me long for things I will never have! Don’t you see? The music makes it so much harder to forget.”

“Samuel’s hand dropped from my chin and understanding washed over his features. “What things? Tell me what things you can never have.”

I didn’t want to share any more. I felt cornered. None of this was any of his business. I was suddenly very tired, and I closed my eyes, refusing to answer him.

Samuel lifted my chin again, waiting until I lifted my eyes to his once more. “So that’s it, you’re just done at twenty-three? What about school? I seem to remember you had big plans to travel the world, playing the piano.”

I twisted my head away, pulling my chin from his hand. He was so…infuriating! I didn’t remember that side of him. I tried for nonchalance.

“I was set to go. I had a full-ride music scholarship to Brigham Young University.” I had won the Outstanding Musician Scholarship, allotted to one high school senior in the state of Utah each year. I remembered the thrill of winning, of seeing my career as a concert pianist, composing music in my spare time, stretched out before me. The dream was faded now and buried under layers of responsibility.

“And?” Samuel demanded.

“And Kasey died, and then my dad had a stroke.” I started listing things, my voice rising with irritation, frustrated that I had to defend myself. “Then Sonja was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and I was needed here! Okay?” I threw my hands up in frustration. “I was needed here, so I stayed.”

“I’ve seen you with your family, Josie. You kind of take care of everyone. You’re good at being needed, that’s for sure.”

“”What is that supposed to mean?” I was very angry now. How dare he?! “My dad had a major stroke a week before I was supposed to leave for school. I decided to defer my scholarship for a while to take care of him. Dad couldn’t work and someone had to. I did what I had to do. Dad started getting better, but the medical bills had piled up, and he still couldn’t work full time, so I decided to wait a little longer. Then Sonja was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and Doc Grimaldi passed away not long after we put her in a home, and I couldn’t just leave her. Nobody else cared, Samuel. And by then the scholarship was long gone anyway!” I was babbling and I forced myself to stop talking. My breathing was haggard, and my throat felt raw with pent up emotion. Samuel was staring out the window, listening, reminiscent of the boy I had once befriended.

There was nothing more to say. Samuel seemed at a loss, and I was drained. After a moment, he started the truck and we backed out, turning sharply onto the road, turning our backs on the grandeur of the gloaming.

When we pulled off onto the gravel outside my house, he slowed to a stop and came around to my door. I had opened it and put one bare foot down on the rocks, curling my toes under to protect my sensitive arch from the sharp gravel. Samuel gently swung me up in his arms again, cradling me like I was something precious. He walked easily to the grass and set me down carefully. His big hands came up and framed my face, his thumbs brushing my cheekbones in a brief caress. I shivered involuntarily. He searched my face for several heartbeats.

His voice was low as he spoke. “It’s not too late, Josie.” And with that, he withdrew his hands and left me. I remained standing, barefoot in the grass and buried in introspection, until the sky was cloaked in darkness and the stars blinked back to life.