Tilting at Windmills

by Joseph Pittman

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m scared. They’ve taken Annie away for some tests—but they’re not very forthcoming with information. Brian, Annie . . . she didn’t look good. There was no color in her face. I’ve never seen her like that.”

  He felt his heart fall, felt tears threaten to flood his eyes. “I’ll call Gerta and be there as soon as I can.”

  He hung up the phone and got out of bed. That’s when he noticed Janey standing in the doorway, the cordless phone in her trembling hands. She’d heard the entire conversation. Brian’s face went white as he realized the horrible implications. They’d tried so hard to keep Janey from harm, and they’d failed. She knew as much as they did, that the situation with Annie was more serious than any one of them wanted to let on, much less speak of.

  The poor girl. He wanted to take her, hold her, comfort her, and tell her that everything would be fine, that her mother would be fine. But he couldn’t, and not only because he feared it might not be true but because she didn’t give him a chance.

  “Janey . . . ” he started to say.

  She gave Brian no chance to catch her as she dropped the phone, its hard plastic making a loud clack on the hardwood floor, and tore out of the room, out of the house, and out of sight.

  “Janey!” Brian called out from the hallway, but the only answer was the empty echo of a lonely house. No reply came, not then, and not an hour later after his exhaustive search.

  Brian stood on the front porch calling out her name, his voice growing hoarse. He dropped to the wooden steps, cradled himself, fought back tears. He thought of Janey, her trembling lips and all that she’d heard. She shouldn’t be alone, not now. Except she was, alone and lonely and afraid.

  Brian was afraid, too, and silently sent a wish on the wind, hoping it was carried north, where it would be heard by a woman lying silently in a hospital bed. Annie had to reawaken, and Janey needed to see her. First, though, he had to find the little girl.

  “Janey,” he murmured to himself. “Where are you?”

  For the first time since the accident, Brian realized the seriousness of the situation. Annie could die, and if she did, God, how would Janey survive another devastating loss? Who would be there for Janey?

  PART TWO

  APRIL

  FOUR

  You hear about the unparalleled beauty of the autumnal landscape in upstate New York and New England, and like thousands of New Yorkers, people make the trek to catch the fall foliage in all its splendor. But spring comes a close second in its allure, with trees blooming after the harsh winter weather and birds chirping in delight of the approaching warmth of summer. And today was a perfect spring day and a perfect day for driving. The road was mine and mine alone.

  As my car crested the green hills somewhere along one of the Hudson River Valley’s rural routes, an unexpected and wondrous image caught my eye, and temporarily I lost the way of the road. As my car’s tires scrabbled against the gravel on the road’s shoulder, I pulled the wheel to the left and corrected my aim down this tiny stretch of seemingly forgotten highway. But my eye wandered again, darting back and forth from object to road, until finally I caught a beautiful sight from the corner of my eye. I knew I had to back up, to see it up close. So I pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the car, where a clean burst of air filled my lungs. I sighed with contentment, a not unfamiliar feeling these days.

  For the past six weeks I’d found myself relaxing and opening up. I would smile often and wide while traveling the countryside, caring little where the road went, just so long as I encountered more road and more still, smooth black pavement that urged me forward. Thoughts of my former life were behind me, dust along the hundreds of miles of road I’d already traversed. Days slipped by, then weeks, as road after road blurred, the landscape of wild growing grass and giant trees gently waving in the breeze now so familiar that it no longer caught my attention. But now, here before me, was truly something to see, something unique.

  Rising up from the ground before me, shooting what seemed to be hundreds of feet into the air, was a solitary and majestic windmill, its four latticelike sails slowly turning in the light wind. Like the kind found dotting the landscape of foreign countries in a children’s fairy tale, it was an arresting vision that awakened my imagination. I felt as though I’d been transported into a new time and place, where innocence and beauty are cherished. I had no idea why, but I had to see the windmill up close, and so my feet moved me forward, across the two-lane road and up into the high grass of the adjacent field.

  The windmill was about two hundred feet from me, the only thing visible on this swath of land, its four sails like a Ferris wheel, touching near to the ground, only to spin upward to the waiting sky. It was set against an azure backdrop, making me feel as though I were staring into a giant postcard. The world I’d known just moments ago seemed to fade right around me, leaving me with the windmill and nothing else. Was this reality? How often do you see such a grand thing?

  I started to move a bit closer, and that was when someone else joined me in my picture-perfect world. From over a distant hill came a small child, her long blond hair trailing behind her fast-moving body. Her arms were outstretched, as though she were embracing the wind, waiting for it to catch her and lift her and take her far, far away. Instead she took a tumble, and her tiny body started to roll uncontrollably down the hill. The windmill temporarily cut off my sight line, but then she reappeared, still rolling and rolling. The forces of motion diminished as she reached the bottom of the hill, and her body flopped to a stop. She lay flat against the ground, looking upward. She wasn’t moving.

  A short intake of breath caused me to freeze in my tracks. Then I came to my senses and ran to see if she needed help. The windmill loomed before me, and then I was beside it and the giant sails churned and I was struck by how unreal this entire scene seemed. Again I was reminded of a children’s story, and I wondered if maybe I were some kind of prince, coming to the rescue of a fair maiden. By the time I reached the little girl, she was already using her elbows to prop herself up, and I noticed that her curious gaze fell directly on me.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi back. Are you okay?”

  She scrunched up her nose at me. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

  “Because you fell?”

  She let out a small giggle. “No, I didn’t. I was just playing a game. The hill is very good for rolling. But it makes me dizzy, so I have to wait for the world to stop spinning before I get up. Once, I didn’t wait and I fell back down, that time for real.”

  “I see,” I said, grinning. She was a cute kid, with a smattering of freckles across her nose and a clear bright smile that gave the sun a run for its shine. She wore a pair of dungarees and a pink shirt, and there was a matching pink ribbon in her hair. Without much experience around kids, it was hard to tell her age, but I guessed it was around seven or eight. “Well,” I continued, “as long as you’re all right, I guess I should be moving on.”

  “Okay,” she replied.

  I gave her one last look before walking back through the silky green grass. A second later, she was right by my side, matching me step for step. I looked down at her and she looked up at me.

  “You seem nice,” she suddenly told me.

  “Well, I am nice,” I said, thrown off by this little girl’s openness. It occurred to me that I shouldn’t linger and I shouldn’t encourage her, because, honestly, I was a stranger and she was an innocent little girl and this was the nineties, and people were suspicious.

  “Where are your parents?” I asked.

  “My mom’s up at the house. Making lunch. I get impatient waiting for her to cook it. Impatient, that’s Momma’s word. So sometimes I go for a quick run to the windmill and back. It’s fun.” She cocked her head with curiosity. “My name’s Janey.”

  “Janey?”

  “My mom, she likes names that end with a y. I’ve heard her say it’s her way of keeping me you
ng, but I’m not going to be young forever. Someday I’ll be Jane. That’s my real name.”

  Janey was a real charmer. “I like Janey, too. It suits you.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Brian.”

  “Briany,” she said, and then giggled. “That sounds yucky.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  We had reached the windmill and I stopped, figuring this was probably a good place to break off our entertaining conversation. I had to get back to the car and my journey and she had to get back to lunch. Standing in the noonday sun, though, surrounded by the luscious greenery of the valley and the leafy trees and this wondrous windmill, I felt overcome with emotion. I stole another look up at the windmill. It was a simple wooden structure about forty feet tall, with a door that led inside and a series of windows on a second floor, which was surrounded by a catwalk. Atop the structure was a cap, which housed the spinning mechanism. Up close it was even more magnificent and words escaped me as I stood transfixed.

  “You like the windmill?” Janey asked.

  “It’s . . . pretty amazing. Is it yours?”

  She nodded her head proudly. “Sometimes I come down to play here. My mom does, too. The windmill is my mom’s . . . umm . . . I forget, but it’s a big word. She says it makes her feel better.”

  “I can see why. It’s already made me feel better, and I didn’t even know I needed cheering up. Well, Janey, it was very nice to meet you, and thank you for telling me about your windmill.”

  I shook her hand and was enchanted as she curtsied for added effect.

  I turned to leave when I heard the little girl say, “ ’Bye, Brian,” making me sneak a peek back, where her tiny hand energetically waved in the wind. I returned her good-bye, and that’s when I saw another figure appear over the hill. A woman, one whom I surmised was Janey’s mother.

  She quickened her pace, and a hysterical pitch caught in her voice as she repeatedly called out her daughter’s name. That’s when I realized she couldn’t see Janey, whose little body was blocked by the windmill. Just me, a strange man on her property. I couldn’t blame her for panicking. I thought it best to stand where I was, not run away. Startling her was bad enough; I didn’t want to scare her, too. Janey, meanwhile, had decided this was a game, and she opened the door to the windmill and hid behind it.

  The woman reached the windmill, emerging between two of the sails as they passed down a few feet above her head, and looked squarely at me. We were separated by no more than twenty feet.

  “Where is she? What have you done—” The woman hurtled her accusation while trying to grab her breath and ended up stopping midsentence.

  I pointed to the door, slightly ajar. A small face peered through the diamond-shaped window and then quickly dropped out of sight. I offered up an innocent shrug, like a child might do when caught red-handed, which only seemed to infuriate Janey’s mom further.

  “Don’t move,” she warned me, and I stuck my hands in the air like a criminal caught in the act, a poor attempt at lightening up the situation that went unappreciated. Then she opened the door to the windmill and stood her ground. “Janey, get out here this instant.”

  A mother’s tone of voice can dictate the direction of any scene. Looking contrary, Janey emerged from her hideout. Truthfully, the girl hadn’t done anything wrong, except for maybe scaring her mother, but she saved any explanation for later. Right now she knew to let the fear run its course.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?” her mother asked, crouching on her knees. Yet she kept an eye on me, making sure I didn’t move. I didn’t.

  “I’m fine, Momma. Just playing.”

  Her mother frowned. “I’m not sure I approve of this game . . . and who, may I ask, were you playing with?” She gave me a steely look that said that if she heard one wrong word, I was toast.

  “I was playing with Brian—he’s nice,” Janey said, and there was a cute lilt to her voice that hinted at the curious and friendly girl I’d met just moments ago. Her mother seemed to hear it, too, and she lessened her grip on her daughter’s arm.

  “I didn’t mean—” I started, only to be cut off.

  “Who are you and what are you doing on my property ?” she asked, walking toward me with cautious determination. I had to admit she seemed pretty gutsy, considering the circumstances. Intruders on her land weren’t an everyday occurrence for her, no doubt, but here she was protecting not just her territory but also her child. Fear and anger overtook rational behavior. Good thing, as Janey had pointed out, that I was nice.

  “It’s an easy explanation,” I said, and with her now just a few feet before me (with her hands planted firmly on her hips), I launched into my short, innocuous tale of pulling to the side of the road and wanting to see the windmill up close. “Truth was, I hadn’t considered that it could be someone’s property. I guess I thought it was county land or something. Anyway, that’s when I saw your little girl take a tumble down the hill and I went to see that she was okay . . .”

  Janey had come up beside her mother, grabbing hold of her arm. “That’s why he’s nice, Momma, ’cause he came to my rescue. Maybe what if I was hurt? Which I’m not,” she quickly added, to stave off an attack of the worries. Janey and I exchanged smiles. Her mother failed to join in our exchange.

  “Look, Mrs. . . .”

  “Sullivan. Annie Sullivan,” she said.

  “No wonder she likes names ending with a y sound,” I said to Janey, “because her name does.”

  Janey started to giggle, and I let out a short laugh, too. Annie looked at the two of us like we were coconspirators, which in effect, we were. For someone not looking for trouble, I seemed to be doing a good job of inviting it now. I sensed a little blond-haired devil’s influence.

  “You learned an awful lot about my daughter in a short amount of time.”

  Again, I raised my hands in innocent protest. “I only asked her name. Janey volunteered the rest.”

  “And I didn’t catch your name,” she said.

  “Yes, you did, Momma; he’s Brian. And he’s nice.”

  “Brian Duncan,” I said, and this time I extended my hand to Annie. She accepted only because Janey pressed her to. Our hands touched, fingers suddenly interlocked by a firm grasp that seemed to hide unspoken words. She had a strong grip and held my hand for a moment. It gave me the chance to gauge her anger level. There was a slight gleam in her eyes that could have been a reflection of the sun. Maybe her fear was dissipating.

  Annie Sullivan, anyone could see, and it happened to be my privilege to do so at the moment, was a beautiful woman. Her soft face was rounded and highlighted by bright cheeks, and her eyes were brown, filled with limitless expression. Her hair, shoulder length, was noticeably darker than her daughter’s, a rich chestnut brown with hints of auburn highlights, depending on the slant of the light. She, too, wore dungarees, along with a blue print blouse that was untucked and splattered with what appeared to be paint.

  “Well, Mr. Duncan, it appears I owe you an apology . . .”

  “No, no—you were completely justified in your reaction. Heck, I’m just some strange guy who suddenly appeared on your land. You’ve been very understanding. I won’t take up any more of your time.” I bowed slightly to Annie, and then to Janey. “Good-bye, Janey. I have to leave and you need to eat your lunch.”

  She put a hand to her mouth in surprise. “I forgot! Thanks, Brian. ’Bye.”

  Annie instructed her daughter to go on ahead, that her sandwich was ready and the soup would have to be reheated. She’d join her in a moment. Then she turned back to me, shook my hand again, and thanked me for being so nice and thoughtful and caring.

  “There aren’t many people in the world you can trust these days,” she said.

  Annie was speaking my language.

  “There are a couple of us left,” I said, and our hands parted. She turned away and so did I, both of us going our separate ways.

  To my surprise, she called out my name—not my
last but my first.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “You really like my windmill?”

  The windmill. I’d nearly forgotten it in the face of such mortal beauty. For a split second, my eyes returned to the old mill before falling back on Annie’s sun-touched face. I recalled the man from the jewelry store in New York, and his enigmatic phrase about tilting at windmills, how his lesson had come from nowhere, not unlike the windmill itself. And Annie, too, appearing from atop that faraway hill, plucked from some magical world and dropped into mine.

  “I like your windmill very much. I’ve never seen something quite so majestic.”

  Her face lit up as though I’d complimented her, and she thanked me before we again turned our backs to each other. I was certain I could still see that smile, somewhat reluctant but spreading with an exponential warmth, which happened to mirror my own.

  I returned to my car, and by the time I drove away, Annie Sullivan had disappeared from view. So, too, had the windmill.

  But both images lingered long in my mind.

  I’d driven east, then west, and also north and south, and many times I’d gone in no particular direction. No point of the compass had a hold on me, and my aimless journey continued, but to where and for what purpose, I still had no idea. The fun was in the finding and now, six weeks since I’d left my former life, I’d gotten the first sign that maybe I was heading in the right direction. The reason? That impossibly placed windmill, and the two utterly charming women who had instantly beguiled me.

  I drove for only three more miles when I came to the nearest stretch of civilization, a little village by the name of Linden Corners. Population 724, established in 1887, or so said a wooden sign posted at the edge of the village. LINDEN CORNERS WELCOMES YOU, read another sign. I had the feeling that had I blinked, I’d have missed the whole town.

  There are lots of places like this all over New York State, and in the Hudson River Valley, lots, too, that include the word Corners in their name, solidifying the already quaint feel so prevalent in this region. A favorite of city weekenders, the Hudson River Valley is rich with antique shops and B&Bs and fruit stands and lots of history, which is preserved in lovingly kept homes and museums. Charm is a word often used to describe this lush region, and Linden Corners was photographic proof of the word. Along with a variety of shops situated along the road, a hardware store, two antique dealers, an old-fashioned general store, and a trading post, Linden Corners boasted a lovely park that was lined with great elm trees budding with new life, and, at its center, a gazebo, white with black trim. Benches lined the park’s perimeter, and there were people sitting, walking, all enjoying a perfectly sun-drenched spring day.