Later that day, a man from Emory University arrived at the house and put labels on a dozen boxes filled with her plays, journals, letters, and photographs. I stayed in Cape Charles for three more days, packing up Momma’s belongings. While I was there, I received an e-mail from Chris Kostman, the owner and race director for the Badwater Ultramarathon, congratulating me on being accepted into the 2013 Badwater. I had already been crying off and on as I packed my mom’s stuff. Chris’s kind note opened the floodgates again.
On my way out of town, I stopped to say good-bye to Momma. I found her in a TV room at the care facility. I stood for a moment in the doorway watching her talk to an elderly man slouched in a wheelchair. She was only sixty-nine—so much younger looking than everyone else in the room. It broke my heart.
“What are you doing here?” she said with a look of wonder when I approached.
I hugged her. We talked about what a pretty day it was outside and how it wouldn’t be long before the dogwoods bloomed. I told her about Badwater and how happy I was to be going back to the race.
She took my hand. “That’s good. I love you.” Her eyes told me there was more, but the words would not come out.
I left Heritage Hall grateful that the staff there would care for her and keep her safe. I hoped she liked having people around. I hoped she wasn’t scared. I hoped she wasn’t in pain. And a part of me hoped she wouldn’t last long.
- - - -
By mid-March, I was getting worried about money. My job at the magazine wasn’t long-term. I was grateful that Steve had helped me get back on my feet, or at least out of the halfway house, but now I needed a real job. I had contemplated getting back into the hail-repair business, but it had been a long time since I had fixed any dents. I wasn’t sure I still knew how. I started calling around to some of the guys who used to work for me. I had no problem humbling myself and letting any of them be the boss. The problem was that it was March and a little early for hail. Then I called Scott Blind, an old friend and one of the best dent technicians in the world. He was happy to hear from me, and as luck would have it, one of his accounts in Atlanta had just sustained a lot of hail damage. He asked if I could get there by the next morning. I told him that I had to get permission to travel but I wanted the job, so please hold my spot.
I called my probation officer and explained the situation. She reminded me that a travel request normally takes a week to process. I practically begged her to let me go. She called me back thirty minutes later to approve my travel with some conditions. First, she wanted to call Scott to confirm that I had the job. And second, she wanted me to text her a photo of me working with the car dealership sign in the background. No problem, I told her.
I loaded my outdated tools in the Dodge Durango that a friend had helped me buy for $1,500. I hit the road at midnight, wanting to get there before the workday started. I drove all night, and despite the poor condition of my vehicle, I made it to Atlanta at 5:30 a.m. I slept for an hour in the truck, and when I woke up, one of my old employees was staring at me through the driver’s-side glass. He laughed when I jumped. He took me over to meet the job-site manager and to get me set up.
Fixing hail damage on cars is tedious work under the best circumstances. It had been years since I had picked up my tools. I used to be one of the best techs in the business, and now I was the worst guy on the job. I even had to ask a couple of the guys to help me out with some dents I just couldn’t fix. For the first few days, I was sore from head to toe, but eventually I started feeling better and doing better work. I followed all of my probation rules and stayed on the job until it ended two weeks later. Even though I was rusty, I made $15,000, enough to let me breathe for a while. I thanked Scott and the guys who helped me and drove back to North Carolina.
- - - -
She sat on the bike next to me in the gym. She had her earbuds in and her music on, the universal sign of “Don’t talk to me, I’m here to work out.” I struck up a conversation anyway. I hadn’t seen her in the gym before. She said she’d recently moved back from Ecuador to be closer to her family. That was my cue.
“Ecuador! I’ve been to Ecuador.”
She didn’t take her earbuds out, but she looked me fully in the eyes for the first time with intrigue and skepticism. “Really? Most people around here don’t even know where Ecuador is. They think it’s in Africa.”
I smiled and nodded that I understood. She continued to crank out intervals on the bike. She was clearly a cyclist, and I was impressed by her power and speed. After what seemed like a safe pause, I asked her about her cycling, did she run, what sports did she play. She lit up when she told me of all the rock climbing she’d done in the High Andes. She loved and missed it.
“Have you ever done any mountaineering? Ice climbing?” I asked.
“Well, I hate to be cold, so I mostly stick to rock, but I did summit Cotopaxi.”
I laughed with delight. “I summited Cotopaxi, too!”
This time her gaze lingered. She pulled out one earbud and then the other, and soon her iPod was turned off, sitting on the front rack of her stationary bike. We laughed and shared adventure stories for the next twenty minutes. She’d worked in the heart of the Amazon; I’d run there. I’d explored the outer islands of Belize; she’d snorkeled them all.
To her family, she was Stacey, but close friends called her Astacianna. I told her that family, friends, and enemies called me Charlie. She seemed to think I was interesting. I was in awe of her athleticism and excited by her energy and the kindness I saw in her eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking, My God, she’s so beautiful! I’m glad I came to the gym today.
She smiled and said it was nice chatting and headed over to the treadmills. I told her I would come over and say good-bye before I left. She seemed surprised, but said, “Okay.”
I couldn’t tell if the door was open, but I was going to walk through it any way that I could. I interrupted her treadmill workout to tell her good-bye. Then, sliding my cell phone out of my pocket, I asked her if she’d like to go running sometime.
Her answer was a quick “No” and it threw me off-balance. “I don’t run with other people. That’s my time alone.”
I stood frozen, feeling like an idiot with my phone in my hand.
She let me just hang there before she smiled. “But I’ll give you my number anyway!”
My heart pumped so loudly that I thought she might be able to hear it. As I drove away, her number in my phone, I told myself to play it cool and wait a day or two before I contacted her. I held out for nearly four hours.
It was two weeks before we had our first date at a downtown coffee shop. I brought my iPad and romanced her with maps on Google Earth. She was an ornithologist and showed me the remote places around the globe where she had worked. When it was my turn, I showed her where some of my favorite races had taken me.
On our second date, we sat outside and ate hummus and pita triangles and salads at a small café. I went back to the car and grabbed a fleece jacket for her because it was getting cold and we weren’t ready to leave yet. My head was spinning. I liked her, but she didn’t know the truth about me. She had been out of the country for the past couple of years. She didn’t know me as a runner, and she most definitely had no idea I’d spent over a year in prison.
When I came back with the jacket, I took a deep breath and told her that I had something I needed to say. Sensing my reluctance, she reached across the table, touched my hand, and then held it. That simple act let me know that it was safe. I laid it all out for her, holding nothing back. Arrest, trial, conviction, prison. She heard me out, smiled, and said, “Is that it? You didn’t murder anyone, right?” I even suggested that she Google my name later if she wanted to know more. She shook her head no and said she wanted to learn about me, from me, not from a computer.
Then it was her turn to take a deep breath. She began to tell me some of her “story,”
things that she said she kept private, even from lifelong friends. She told me that she had always been uncomfortable with sharing these intimate details for fear that they would define her, but that she felt compelled to tell me now. She had survived numerous rare diseases, including lymphomas; she’d had an onslaught of invasive procedures beginning at age seven and lengthy hospitalizations as a teenager. The chemo and radiation had wreaked havoc on her body, and she’d suffered with a destroyed bladder for nearly thirty years. From that young age, she would never have a pain-free day again in her life. She’d been through dozens of surgeries and there would be more. She didn’t complain; she just trusted me enough to share. The remarkable thing was, no one would ever guess any of this based on her glowing presence and lean, athletic build. She’d played professional beach volleyball, but when injuries ended that career, she went back to college, became a competitive cyclist, got married, and was on track for a PhD when lymphoma hit again, the worst one yet. Her husband left her on her deathbed, having already found someone to replace her. But she didn’t die. She was here, sitting in front of me. And she was perfect. We were still holding hands, and it was my turn to squeeze. I felt as if my heart might explode. I had never met anyone else like her, and I wanted this feeling to last.
I walked her to her car after dinner and I asked if I could kiss her. She shook her head no, but then she smiled and said, “Yes.” After that first kiss, I was certain that this was going to be serious and wonderful, if I didn’t screw it up.
The next day, I left for California, and Astacianna drove south to the Uwharries, a densely forested area near Asheboro, North Carolina. I was off to do an eighty-one-mile race, and she was banding birds and doing field surveys. Neither of us had a strong cell signal, so we weren’t able to talk for several days. In my event, the inaugural Badwater Salton Sea race in Southern California, teams of three runners racing together ran against other teams, over rough terrain. I was on Team Neapolitan with Meredith Dolhare, a redheaded former collegiate tennis player, and Mosi Smith, a black retired US Marine. I was the white ex-con. We had T-shirts made with the image of an ice cream sandwich with strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla. Under the different colors were the words A GINGER, A JARHEAD, and A JAILBIRD. It felt great to run against tough competition on a challenging course. Unfortunately for my team, my mind was wandering back to North Carolina when I missed a turn and got us lost for several hours. We still managed to finish fourth.
Steve Hilts was on my support team, and before the race started, I asked him to let me know if Astacianna texted or called. I felt like a lovesick teenager. After only one kiss, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
I returned to Greensboro in time for Kevin’s graduation from high school. Dad and Molly came to the ceremony, as did my stepdad, Coke, whom I was especially happy to see. We’d stayed in touch over the years, and he had always been supportive. Pam was there, of course, and so was Brett. He was working as a personal trainer at a big fitness club in town. He had put on some serious muscle, thanks to hard training and sober living. We had been through a lot as a family; it felt wonderful to be standing together outside the site of Kevin’s graduation ceremony. And Kevin hadn’t just graduated; he had earned nearly ninety credit hours toward college. He would be entering the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall as a junior. After the ceremony, he came up and hugged me hard and said, “I wish Nana could have been here. I miss her.”
It took a second for me to compose myself enough to say, “Me, too, buddy, she would have been proud of you.”
- - - -
Astacianna and I started spending as much time together as we could. She was still going out into the field several days each week for her work. She could identify thousands of birds by sound alone. I started calling her the bird whisperer. I was in awe of her talents—and I was falling in love.
I was already in pretty good shape after the Salton Sea race, but now it was time to focus on Badwater. I ramped up my training as much as I dared, walking that fine line every runner knows between too much and too little. I had never been a high-mileage trainer. Instead I focused on duration. I hated going for a “thirty-mile run,” but I could happily go out for six hours. I liked knowing exactly when I would finish.
One day, I asked Astacianna if she wanted to come with me. I told her that I would understand if she didn’t want to, but it would mean a lot to me. In other words, I guilted her into it. I knew she liked running alone, but I hoped that I could convince her that she was helping me. She reluctantly agreed.
About an hour into our first run, we had been talking nonstop and enjoying the trails when she said, “This isn’t so bad. Do you always run this slowly? Now I see how you run for six hours at a time.”
I stopped dead in my tracks and pretended to be offended. “Well, if you really want to see how I run, why don’t you come out to Badwater as part of my crew?”
“Are you serious? I’m afraid I would be a distraction.”
“Honestly, at this point, it would be a much bigger distraction for me if you weren’t there. I would love for you to be with me. It’s a hard race for me, but it will be nearly as rough for you. It’s the same temperature for both of us.”
She said she would think about it.
It was strange how badly I wanted her in Death Valley with me. I wanted her to see the absolute core of who I was. I wanted her to know me better than anyone else ever had. I knew that there was no hiding or faking at Badwater. I think in some way I wanted to speed things along and know if her love for me was too good to be true. I knew that she would see the real me, the bad, the ugly, and hopefully some good, at Badwater. I thought she would know if I was the kind of man she wanted to be with by mile 135. I already knew that I wanted her, and that loving her was the most honest thing I had ever done. The next day she said yes.
- - - -
“Wow, you sure are pretty.”
Those were the first words out of my mother’s mouth when she met my new girlfriend. I don’t think my mom even noticed me. She always had great taste in women. I had decided to visit her before Badwater, and Astacianna had agreed to come with me. I watched as she walked up to my mother and introduced herself. Mom used her finger to trace the outline of Astacianna’s face. When she reached her hair, she tilted her head slightly and said, “Just look at those things. How do they do that?” Astacianna’s hair was impossibly curly, and Mom no longer possessed a filter.
Astacianna and I pulled up chairs so that we could sit with Mom. She looked a little disheveled today, as if maybe she hadn’t slept well.
I left the room to visit the nurses’ station to discuss some things about Mom’s care and her clothes. When I returned, Astacianna was brushing Mom’s hair as she sat in a chair. Her eyes looked sleepy. Astacianna looked up at me and smiled. She wasn’t performing a chore; she was loving my mother, touching her, connecting with her, with what was left of her.
My mom was living entirely in the moment, so whenever she found herself able to say something, she just said it. She didn’t have all the words she wanted, but she made her point perfectly.
“You make me feel peaceful,” she said to Astacianna. “I trust you.”
- - - -
I couldn’t contain my excitement as we drove from Vegas to Furnace Creek on July 14 for the racer check-in at Badwater. I shifted around in my seat in the van as I pointed out familiar sites: Dante’s View, Zabriskie Point, the expansive salt flats. As we got closer to Death Valley, I longed to feel the relentless baking sun once again. For weeks the national news had reported stories of unprecedented heat in Death Valley National Park, with five consecutive days reaching at least 129 degrees. Nightly news and NPR were issuing heat advisories. That only excited me more. The record temperature was exactly one hundred years old, 134 degrees in July of 1913. I told everyone that I wanted 135 degrees; the hotter the better. Sitting beside me, Astacianna looked
at me bemused as if she was thinking, Who is this guy? He’s nuts! But I think she liked it. She had told me more than once, “Normal is boring.”
“In that case,” I had said, “you’ll never be bored with me!”
I went to runner check-in, not exactly sure of the reception I would receive. Chris Kostman had been incredibly welcoming to me at the Badwater Salton Sea race, and I knew he was solidly in my corner. But dozens of runners that I had known and raced against for years were going to be here. I got my answer as soon as I got out of the car in the parking lot.
Pam Reed, who had won Badwater twice, ran over and hugged me. “Welcome back!”
That’s how it went for the rest of the day. One reunion after another. And I was glad that my Badwater friends got to meet Astacianna and to see that I was more than just okay.
I had thought about this race every day for the past three years. At last I was here, on the starting line. To my left and my right were some of the best ultrarunners in the world: Pam, Dean Karnazes, Oswaldo Lopez, David Goggins. Most of them probably assumed that I had come here to simply take part. Just before the countdown began, I overheard one female runner asking why I had deserved the #2 starting bib. My plan was to show her.
I continue to believe that life is all about adaptation. It is not the circumstances that we are dealt that define us. Instead, the fabric of who we are is crafted by how we react, cope, adapt; and now I have a new mantra that I carry with me. It’s simple, yet undeniably powerful. Astacianna shared it with me right before the start, for me to use if the race felt too hard for me to continue. She told me that each of us has his or her own pain, and no one else’s pain is greater or less than ours. In her eyes, we are only equipped to measure our personal pain in the context of our own life experiences. When faced with what might seem to be an overwhelming hardship, she calms her breathing and with each exhale repeats these three words, one at a time: No. Big. Deal.
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