Tender Grace (12 page)
When the woman emptied both registers and handed Ski Mask the sack, he told her to get around the counter and sit with us. Then with us huddled there together, he shot over us one more time and ran out the door. We kept our heads down until we heard the door close, which is why we missed the pleasure of seeing the man run into two policemen heading into the store from a patrol car parked just out of view. They had him subdued before he could shoot over or at them. The three of us got ourselves up off the floor and walked outside to see that they had already cuffed the thief and pushed him into the back of their police car. He no longer wore a ski mask, but I couldn’t make out his features through the car window. I didn’t try very hard, even though it occurred to me I should go over and thank him for putting those bullets in the wall instead of us.
I opened the door for the other women instead, and as we reentered the store, I asked the older woman if she had sounded the alarm.
“No, but I ’bout got blown away trying. Those officers come in around this time several times a week, though. Good timing, huh? They’re gettin’ free coffee for a week!”
I felt like chipping in some CornNuts.
So there I was, giving a policeman my name and cell phone number, glad I wasn’t being carted off to the hospital or the morgue. When they took Ski Mask away, I purchased my Diet Coke and CornNuts, told the ladies I was glad they were okay, and rushed back to the hotel. As I drove through the streets of Santa Fe, walked down a colorful, brightly lit hallway, and finally locked myself in my clean and quiet room, one thought dominated all others: A desperate man wearing a ski mask and pointing a gun at my face could have killed all three of us just as easily as he had fired warning shots over our heads. Looking at that gun so menacingly close to my face provided me great clarity. I knew I wanted to live. I want to get to San Diego by way of the Grand Canyon and Phoenix; I even want to go on up the California coast to Monterey and San Francisco, places I had told Tom I want to visit someday; and then I want to get home to my children and their sweet children.
Though I was, and am, shaken (Hello—I
was
a victim of an armed robbery!), somehow this has not made a bigger coward of me. I have not thought even fleetingly of turning back, of cutting this trip short. Sounding like Tom, I have explained to myself that I will have to purchase gas and Diet Coke in Springfield too, and I doubt I will be safer there than I will be anywhere else. Besides, statistics should be in my favor. What are the chances I’ll ever be involved in another robbery? (My cynical side just whined, “Odds are seldom in your favor.”)
I’m learning to accept that there are no guarantees. But I’m also acknowledging there really
are
wonderful opportunities. Right up until I sat on a dirty floor looking into the barrel of a gun, I had enjoyed this day immensely. I left my room around noon and spent the day following the Rio Grande from Santa Fe to Taos and back again. I stopped at a seven-hundred-year-old pueblo and paid the fee to take a fifteen-minute walk to see Nambe Falls. The gorgeous double drop waterfall thrilled me. I sat and stared at the tumbling water for quite some time. In a shop on the Taos plaza, I bought something to eat and had a solitary picnic at a stunning stretch of river, mysteriously unmarked by a scenic view sign (some state official’s unfortunate oversight). I loved the Rio Grande and the drive between Santa Fe and Taos.
My mistake was stopping at a convenience store near the city limits of Santa Fe moments before an armed robbery was to begin.
When I made it back to this room tonight, I collapsed on the bed. I had no energy for removing my makeup or my clothes. I did pull back the covers so I could hide beneath them.
Before I fell into a merciful, restorative sleep, my promise came to comfort me:
“I am with you always.”
“I know,” I whispered, “but I wish you could hold me.”
The truth is, though, as sleep came like a gift, I did not feel alone.
September 1
Well, I’ve lived to see the first day of September. After yesterday, that suddenly seems quite remarkable.
I awoke this morning to sun peeking through a slit between the curtains. I had closed them last night after I woke up wondering why I had gone to bed with my clothes on. I got up, put on a gown, took off what was left of my makeup, and wrote the second half of yesterday’s entry. I was back in bed pretty quickly, counting my sheep: “I will fear no evil, for you are with me”; “It is I; don’t be afraid”; “I am with you always”; “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
I managed to fall asleep again, but dreaming made it fitful. Surprisingly, I didn’t dream about crazed killers wearing colorful ski masks. Instead I dreamed of Tom. In fact, he made an appearance in two of the dreams. Tom used to say he never dreamed, or if he did, he never remembered a dream when he awoke. I can’t imagine such a thing.
In the first dream I was stuck up to my armpits in something like quicksand. I saw Tom standing nearby on solid ground and called out to him.
“Tom, help me!”
“Hurry up,” he said. “The kids are waiting for you in the Alamo.”
“But, Tom, I can’t move! Get me out of here!”
“You can get out of there, Audrey.”
He had some nerve. I couldn’t even lift my arms out of the muck.
“Thomas Hanes Eaton,” I commanded, “get something and get me out of here!”
“The kids are waiting,” he said.
I looked down, surprised to see that the mire I was caught in was now only up to my waist. I woke up, wondering if I ever managed to get out.
The other dream about Tom was equally as frustrating in a different way. He was sitting by the river where I ate lunch yesterday. When I walked up and saw him there, I was elated.
“Tom,” I said, sitting beside him, smoothing my jean skirt underneath me, “where have you been?”
“At the waterfall,” he said.
“I was just there!” I said. “Isn’t it pretty?”
“Very pretty.” Then he stood up and stretched. “Well, I’d better get going.”
“What do you mean? I just got here.”
“I have to go mow the yard.”
“No, no,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Stay awhile.”
“I have to get it done, honey.”
“Okay,” I said, starting to get up, “I’ll go with you.”
“No,” he said, “stay here and swim.”
I looked down and saw I had on my bathing suit instead of a jean skirt and white T-shirt. And I noticed Helen, poppy red hair blazing in the sun, sitting beside me, throwing rocks into the river.
“Helen,” I said, “what are you doing here?”
She smiled as if I had asked an amusing question.
When I turned back around, Tom was hardly discernible in a distant field, mowing on a John Deere tractor, much too far away for him to hear me calling, “Wait! Wait!”
I heard giggles then and turned to see Helen playing in a waterfall with Kelsie and Jada. They called to me, and I was thinking of joining them when I awoke.
Each time I dream of Tom, I recall Milton’s sonnet about his late wife: “But O, as to embrace me she inclined, / I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.”
I finally left the haven of my room and spent the entire afternoon strolling down Canyon Road, where there were lots of people. Today daylight and people were priorities. Galleries and restaurants housed in adobes lined the streets, one after another, so many of them. Some of the galleries looked quite modern, with whitewashed walls and sparse displays. Art was displayed outdoors as well, and flower and sculpture gardens delighted me when I happened onto them. I enjoyed the paintings, sculptures, pottery, and other types of arts, but everything was pricey, and it’s a good thing my cottage-style home isn’t right for most of it.
But I did enter one shop that displayed paintings I could imagine in my home. As I entered, I stood aside for a couple hauling a large wrapped painting to their SUV; when they left, I practically had the place to myself, for a while anyway.
“If I can help you with anything, let me know,” a woman said from behind an easel as I ambled through a spacious room where she was working in a corner, natural light pouring through a bank of windows beside her.
“I love the paintings,” I said. “They’re different from most of the things I’ve seen today.”
“I’m glad you like them,” she said. Her hair was pulled back in a chignon, and her long, full dress mimicked the muted colors of the paintings, a beautiful palette I’ve seen on the facades of old buildings in Rome and Venice.
She wiped her hands on a rag and put down her brush, and I realized I was talking with the artist.
She had captured scenes of New Mexico magnificently— the deserts, the river, the pueblos, the old churches, Canyon Road, the flower and sculpture gardens.
“Have you always lived here?” I asked.
“As a matter of fact, I haven’t,” she said. “Five years ago, my husband and I moved here from Chicago.”
“You pulled a Georgia O’Keeffe?”
“I doubt either of us will live to be ninety-eight,” she said, “but we did visit here and fall in love with it.”
We talked for a while longer and walked together through two more rooms. She seemed to enjoy looking at her paintings as much as I did; I sensed they were old friends. We were standing before a large picture dominated by an iron railing with flowers spilling over it when I glanced over at a table where a small picture sat on an easel.
“Oh my,” I said, walking over to stand before it. “That’s lovely.”
“It’s one of my favorites,” she said.
It had no price tag. I hoped the cost wasn’t astronomical. That it was only an eight-by-ten made me think purchasing it might be a possibility.
I nodded to the painting. “I was there yesterday,” I said.
“Believe me, it was the nicest part of my day.”
She smiled and I decided not to elaborate on my day except for the exceptional scenery.
“Nambe Falls is beautiful,” I continued. “I wished as I stood looking at it—the water tumbling, the double drop, the landscape around it—that I could remember it forever, and here it is.”
“I wanted to capture it,” she said. “That’s hardly possible, but I was satisfied.”
We walked on through the rooms, talking about several more of her paintings, and I was honored that an artist whose work I admired was available to chat about her pieces on this first Friday afternoon in September. I left her shop with the picture wrapped and bagged, as excited as I’ve ever been about any purchase.
I saw the artist, Mona is her name, and her husband that evening at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and spoke to them as music played in the courtyard. I told her I hadn’t seen a painting in the museum that I loved any more than the one I purchased from her that afternoon.
She laughed as though the idea were absurd, but she seemed pleased nonetheless. She gave me her card and said I should e-mail her sometime and stop in when I’m in the area again.
When I got back to the hotel, I unwrapped my waterfall and thought of the words in John 7 that I had read before I left this morning: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
I feel like I’m standing in that waterfall, arms extended, palms up, like my Indian brave.
September 2
The drive to Albuquerque didn’t take long. This is Labor Day weekend, so I actually called ahead and booked a room. Tom and I never made it to Santa Fe, but we spent the night here on several trips we made to California, and for that reason alone I’m glad to be here. I had to smile as I pulled up to a gas pump and remembered the time we stopped here only to fill up and trade drivers on our marathon trip from California to Springfield.
On one trip west with the kids, we arrived in Albuquerque early enough to give in to the kids’ pleas and take them to the water park. It is quite a nice one, with enough slides to have amused the kids and their dad.
They had rushed back and forth between the slides and the wave pool, stopping by to see me floating on the lazy river in my yellow inner tube. I like lazy rivers, the gentle rocking as close to the comfort of being in the womb as I can imagine. I might have set a record for laps that day, coming out only for a drink and a forced trip to the slide area to watch my family zip down all seven slides. Actually, I enjoyed watching them; it was their nagging that bugged me.
“Come on, Mom, try it!”
Even Tom urged me to do what I had no intention of doing. I didn’t parasail in Florida either, but sat on the beach, watching them soar through the air, later listening to them exclaim about the thrill of it.
“You really should try parasailing, Audrey,” Tom said over a pile of French fries the evening they survived it.
“Why do you think a woman who won’t go down a water park slide would jump up and
parasail
, Tom? Here’s an idea:
You should spend time lolling on a lazy river.”
So I have no idea what got into me today when I put my things away, pulled on my bathing suit, tied a long sarong around my waist, and drove to that water park. I walked right past the lazy river and put my things in a locker and headed for the slides, planning to go down every one of them before I left, including the enclosed one, ominously called Lightning.