I rose from the table and stomped out of the back door and onto the lawn. I didn’t stop stomping until I reached the edge of the bayou that ran behind my house. I could feel the heat on my face and struggled to get control of my emotions. I stared out at the moving water. It seemed so peaceful. The entire town did, really. Yet so many bad things had happened. So many secrets exposed. So many lives ruined.
I was tired of it all. Tired of pretending to be something I wasn’t. Tired of being who I thought I was. Tired of not knowing what I wanted. Tired of caring what other people thought. And most of all, tired of being judged for the things I’d done.
“Are you all right?” Ida Belle’s voice sounded behind me.
I started to say “yes” but then decided there was no point in lying. “No.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said, and stepped up beside me. “I wasn’t either.”
I looked over at her. “What do you mean?”
She looked out over the water for a while and I could tell her mind was somewhere else. At first, I thought she wasn’t going to answer, then finally she spoke.
“When I first came back from Vietnam, I thought I was going to live happily ever after, so to speak, but I was never able to slip into it. Oh, everyone thought I should be thrilled to be back from that hellhole and grateful that I’d returned alive and in one piece. I was, and I wasn’t. You see, the young woman who came back from the war was a lot different from the young woman who went to war.”
I nodded. That was always the case.
“I went,” Ida Belle continued, “because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to save our American soldiers, and I knew I had the intelligence to do more than wrap wounds or clean bedpans. And I was right. I was very good at what I did, just like you, and with that knowledge comes a feeling of strength and…I don’t know how to describe it exactly, so I’ll just say purpose.”
“That’s a good way to describe it.”
“I thought you might agree. I believe that women like us are not made like other people. Gertie, for all her common domestic pursuits like knitting and baking, still doesn’t have that average manner of thinking that drives most women to normal lives. Even successful career women mostly go on to have husbands and children and barbecues with family. But women like us can’t ever wrap our minds around such a life of simplicity.”
“We can’t let go of that part of us that wants to do something bigger than we are. That thing that makes us who we are.”
Ida Belle nodded. “It’s our nature that makes us so good at what we do. It saves the lives of many and improves the lives of so many others, and most will never know. It’s like a drug, almost, the knowledge that you make a difference to so many just because you’re the best at what you do. You feel as if you were born for this thing and this one thing only.”
“Yes! That’s it exactly.”
“Then one day, we’re faced with not doing it any longer. Not being who we inherently are. And that’s the worst day of our lives because it makes us question every choice we’ve ever made and will ever make. Because we start to wonder if we’re real or simply a well-oiled machine.”
I felt the tears well up and I nodded. “How do I know the answer?”
“It will come. I promise you that, and I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t believe it to be true. It takes time, and that part is like death to people of action. But one day, you’ll know the truth, and it will be so obvious that you’ll wonder why you didn’t see it to begin with.”
She put her hand on my shoulder.
“You’re a person born with purpose, Fortune Redding.”
*
I spent a long time standing there staring at the bayou. The answers Ida Belle told me would come never materialized, but then I hadn’t figured they would. They weren’t simple questions, so I couldn’t expect simple answers. I finally headed back inside and found a note from Gertie saying they would be back at lunch to talk things out. Gertie was bringing a chicken casserole.
I smiled. As they would say in the South, Gertie was such a “dear.” She knew I coveted those casseroles we’d delivered the day before and now she was going to go home and boil chicken, mash eggs, or whatever else was required, just to perk up my mood. I’d never met people like them before and I was fairly certain I never would again. They understood me like no one else ever would, and that made for strong bonds. I’d never imagined having friends like this, but now that I did, I couldn’t imagine not having them.
I put on my tennis shoes and a ball cap and headed out to run. The exercise yesterday had done me good. My muscles complained a bit because I’d lain off exercise for so long, but once put in motion, they settled back into normal performance. I set out at a good pace around the neighborhood. I could have jogged down one of the farm roads that led into the swamps, but I liked seeing what was going on.