Forever Finley

by Holly Schindler

  It shouldn’t have mattered—Patricia had never been much for the domestic arts, not ever; she had cooked and run her household on autopilot while focusing the bulk of her attention on grading term papers or reading a deliciously thick Victorian novel. But the gardening and the knitting both felt like gargantuan failures, mostly because Patricia was beginning to suspect that what she was bad at was retirement. That filled her with worry—no, no, more like all-out panic—since it was all that was waiting for her now that she was no longer an active teacher but a former one, and now that her daughter was a full-fledged woman of independence, an attorney in Oklahoma City.

  She did not want overall-clad men at the Corner Diner (constantly in the midst of poring over the latest seed catalogs) or the flowering dogwoods that lined the streets of Finley taunting her, wordlessly, acting like getting something—anything—to bloom was one of the great delights of life—right up there with first kisses or water skiing. It wasn’t. Patricia knew that even if she spent the next ten years ankle-deep in garden rows and soaker hoses, it would never get any more delightful. And maybe, too, that meant that the rest of her retirement would never get any more delightful, either. Maybe the boredom that had begun to creep in as she and Timothy sat on the porch swing, sipping wine and watching the sunset (For the love of Pete, she’d begun to think through gritted teeth, it’s the same. Every. Single. Night.) would only intensify. Maybe boredom, she’d begun to fear, could grow painful. Like arthritis. Except she doubted there was a cream for it.

  Hopefully, today’s 5K race would bring her some comfort. Yes, the April’s Promise Couples Race, held each year, on the first sunny Saturday of the month. It would fill her with a sense of Now, this I can do—and enjoy. She’d risen and put on her running shorts, moseyed through the front door with her chest puffed out like a proud robin. The race had long been in existence when she and Timothy moved to Finley—just as love itself had already been in existence before they’d met. In Patricia’s mind, the race and love had long been intertwined. She and Timothy had run it every year they’d been married, even the year she was pregnant with Jessica, because it was early on—so early, she didn’t know for sure, had not yet even really begun to count days on her calendar and say, I wonder…They had even won it, four years straight, when they were in their mid-thirties.

  Ah, yes, the April’s Promise race. She could stick her tongue out at the tender purple hyacinths as she and Timothy made their way toward the town square, always the official starting point. The yearly 5K was something she was good at, an item she could place under the “Proudly Accomplished” list on the bar graph of her life’s ups and downs. A promise I can certainly keep, she thought to herself, not caring at all that it sounded silly and corny.

  “Take that, retirement,” she whispered as she joined the throngs on the square.

  Patricia smiled inwardly. Here they all were—hundreds and hundreds of runners, proving yet again that love did, in fact, bloom eternal—it bloomed no matter what kind of thumb a girl had. Yes, it touched every living creature in Finley—the blue jays and the cross-pollinated roses and the caterpillars and the high schoolers and even the elementary school boys suddenly sticking their tongues out at their little-girl classmates in a bid to get their attention.

  It bloomed, too, for the kind of couples that weren’t part of the earliest April Promises she and Timothy had participated in: couples of different races, same sexes. It was beautiful and liberating and it all proclaimed that love was an undeniable force.

  The more Patricia thought about it, it didn’t seem right to think of love as a blooming thing—no, no, that was too fragile, too tied to a specific season. Love kept right on gushing, that was more like it, right on schedule, feelings spewing like—well, like a regular Old Faithful. Being here gave Patricia proof of that—the kind of proof she’d been aching for lately. Not that she would ever admit to it out loud.

  Timothy pointed toward the sidelines, shouted into her ear something about getting their numbers.

  She nodded as Coach Hendricks, the high school girls’ track and field trainer, launched into the usual recitation of the rules of April’s Promise: “Remember, guys and gals, you have to cross the finish line together,” she shouted into her bullhorn, waving her already-tanned arms beneath the hand-painted “April’s Promise” banner, decorated each year by elementary school students. This one was covered with giant purple flowers and awkward stick figures sporting giant pairs of running shoes. “That finish line isn’t a threshold—nobody’s practicing for their wedding day by carrying their fiancée over it,” Coach Hendricks warned, wagging her finger at the newly-engaged Natalie and Damien. Patricia knew them as she knew most everyone in town, Damien a kindergarten teacher and Natalie a camera operator—“videographer,” that was the fancier term Natalie preferred—at the local news station. The two of them exchanged those sparkly-eyed smiles that came with that time of life. All those big plans, Patricia thought, and felt herself turning every bit as green as the vines popping to life around the front door of the nearby Cuppa coffee shop.

  “You both have to finish together, at the same time, on your own two feet,” Coach Hendricks barked. “You can’t come in ahead of or behind your partner.” Had that always been the term? Patricia wondered. Partner? “No piggyback rides, either,” Hendricks warned. “You finish together or not at all.”

  The mere mention of piggyback rides made giggles explode. Patricia glanced about and recognized one of her former students—Justin, the prize student, the one she pointed to in her own mind as proof of a job well done. Her published author, her reporter at The Finley Times. Yes, that made Patricia an English Teacher Extraordinaire. Today, he was standing next to one of Timothy’s old students, his own prize student, his Annie, currently making her way as an artist in New York. Patricia would point it out to Tim when he came back, let him know she was back in town…only, the two of them weren’t rumored to be a couple—were they? Annie didn’t live in Finley anymore, not full-time. She and Justin were friends. They always had been. So what were they doing in a couples race? Had something changed?

  Patricia squinted. Someone else was apparently asking the same question. Annie and Justin were shaking their heads. “No, no,” they were saying. “Best friends, as always.”

  As Patricia’s eyes panned out, she caught sight of two women—sisters, she knew. Beside them, a father and daughter. What was this? Why had so many non-couple couples invaded this year’s race? This was supposed to be a test of your strength together, as a team—wasn’t it? Wasn’t that why so many proposals happened at the finish line? Wasn’t it the place where long-term spouses proved they still had it—better than ever before, a well-oiled machine? This was for couples, not buddies who could come and go as they pleased in each other’s lives, months or years with no contact and then, suddenly, a phone call, a luncheon. This was not for parents and children, siblings, people who were connected by lineage, by blood—ties that were part of a person’s DNA. This was for people who had to make the choice, every single day, to be together. Couples who…she felt the blood drain from her face. Was it becoming harder to find twosomes like her and Timothy? Did Old Faithfuls dry up after all?

  Beside her, a wedding planner—Kelly, that was her name, she had planned the nuptials of Patricia’s niece two years ago—was shaking her head and scoffing. “Thresholds,” she was bemoaning to her own partner—but who was he? A boyfriend? A buddy? Were those titles wearing out, becoming outdated, starting to sound stuffy and silly—like “esquire” at the end of a lawyer’s name? She was certain her own lawyer-daughter Jessica would no more be caught using such a title than she would be wearing a petticoat. “Please don’t tell me Natalie and Damien want a threshold,” Kelly grumbled, either to her running partner or herself, Patricia couldn’t be sure. “If they do, it’ll be a traditional ceremony. A boring, boring traditional ceremony…Traditional—bah.”

  Patricia flinched. Something about that felt derogatory. Because
she had herself worn a veil? Why should it matter to her now?

  A strange gray-haired man popped into Patricia’s peripheral vision—oddly close, uncomfortably close. Patricia gasped and lunged backward. Frowned when the man laughed.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you. Got our numbers,” Timothy said, raising two black “552”s. He’d gone completely gray recently, suddenly. It still surprised her. No—not just surprised. Each time she caught sight of it, she felt as though a car had just driven past, splashing cold water onto her with such force that the drops were painfully sharp, like the tips of needles. He took hold of her shoulders and spun her so that her back faced him.

  Patricia sighed, gathering her own hair into a bun at the top of her head while her husband fixed her number to the backs of her shoulders. Hers had been a sandy blond when she was younger, but it had grown increasingly darker, and was now faintly streaked with lighter chunks. Certainly, it was the beginning of her own white hair, but for now, it looked like highlights, like kisses from the sun. Didn’t it?

  Maybe you’ve just been fooling yourself, Patricia mused. Maybe even darkening blond hair was also a sign of age—the same way that a wooden antique grew darker with time. She had patina. As soon as the word popped into her mind, Patricia’s eyes roved toward the wedding planner, the one still shaking her head at her current clients.

  The starting gun went off; Patricia waited for the runners ahead to begin moving. And then it was one foot in front of the other, slowly at first, then picking up enough pace as the crowds spread out that she bent her elbows and broke into a jog.

  Timothy had been running when she’d met him. This thought came to her as it always did at the start of an April’s Promise. There she’d been, eighteen years old, in stonewashed jeans, a Walkman clipped to her belt, the sounds of her latest favorite tape spewing through her headphones. Springsteen’s The River. And she was staring at her new schedule, wind rustling through the bangs she’d meticulously styled. She had probably been humming—or swaying—Springsteen always got to her that way. “Hungry Heart”—even still, when it came on the car radio, Patricia took the long way home. But there she was, listening and looking at her schedule and feeling decidedly grown-up, a full-blown freshman in college. Timothy ran right into her that day, like she was a tackling dummy. But it didn’t make her mad—it was funny. She was laughing and she was pulling her headphones down so they curved around the back of her neck; ridiculously, he offered her his package of Oreos—what he’d grabbed for lunch—in apology. And that was funny, too.

  There it was—the beginning. Certain years, as the race began, Patricia had thought back on it and considered it providential. This year, it just seemed so random and strange. What if he’d taken the other sidewalk—the one on the opposite side of the quad? What if she had taken her backpack to one of the concrete benches before turning up her Springsteen, like she should have? What then? No Jessica? No Timothy? No thirty years? That one stupid, silly moment, “Hungry Heart” playing in the background. Is that how the beginning went for everyone?

  If so, it was no wonder that Old Faithfuls dried up.

  She and Timothy snaked their way around the square along with the rest of the panting throngs. On the north side, a sign appeared, adorned with a confused-looking arrow that pointed in two different directions.

  Patricia slowed. Her arms straightened at her side and her forehead crinkled. Silly arrow, she caught herself thinking. Make up your mind.

  “You choose your own path this year,” Kelly the wedding planner announced as she jogged by. She seemed happy about it. But Patricia was disappointed; she couldn’t find her excitement suddenly, not even when former students flowed around her and Timothy, shouting out their usual greetings to Mr. and Mrs. Steele, cheering them, encouraging them to get a move on.

  “Which way?” Timothy asked.

  Without so much as a second thought, Patricia pointed toward the bridge. The course changed every year—it was never something anyone in Finley could plan on or fully master that way. But it had never been this; never choosing your own way. It was always one path, one course, the same set of challenges. It didn’t seem right—they would all encounter different trials along the way.

  As they jogged, her thoughts immediately went to the phone in the kitchen—the one she’d smeared with pancake batter last Sunday morning as she’d grabbed hold of the receiver and dialed Jessica’s phone, expecting to find her alone in her apartment. Instead of Jessie’s all-business “Hello,” she’d been greeted by a sleepy man’s voice. She’d pretended she’d dialed the wrong number—and had stood in the kitchen beside their old landline while the bacon started to scorch, trying to decide what she thought of the whole thing.

  Maybe Jessica had already seen the world as a choose-your-own path. Maybe she focused on the lesser-traveled forks, whereas Patricia had always had her eyes on the main path—the path she’d always assumed she would travel, the path she’d seen everyone else travel.

  Sweat began to break out across her forehead before she and Timothy had barely made it halfway across the bridge. She was already fatigued, here at the beginning of this year’s race.

  Only, they weren’t really at the beginning. Far from it—they’d been running together now for thirty years. They’d racked up so many miles together—enough to exhaust anyone. And Patricia was herself in desperate need of finding her second wind—on and off the course.

  Deep in thought, she bumped into Timothy; the two of them staggered, struggling to regain balance. She stepped on Timothy’s foot; he stepped on hers.

  Perhaps this should have been funny, too—just like that first strange little meeting of theirs. Maybe she should have thought of it as colliding into each other all over again. Only, she was thinking about how they’d both practice-taught the same semester, meeting up for dinner at the burger joint halfway between their respective schools. How they’d graduated the same year, moved to teach in the respected Finley school system together. Had their daughter and marveled together at all her firsts, the chubby legs finally deciding to walk, the teddy bears and the training bras. They’d kept on, until all three of them were going to the same high school every day, and she and Timothy were laughing about how their own little Jessica’s ponytail was swinging, hypnotizing the boys in her class. Later at night, they’d confess to each other they hated it and were proud of it all at the same time.

  When they were still working, they were separated for eight hours by hallways and blackboards, but there were always times during the day when Timothy would walk by her English class just to wink at her while she lectured. And this was their joke, too. Something they shared, just as they shared everything.

  When Timothy had flung the word out at breakfast—“retirement”—she’d easily caught it. Of course they would retire. Of course it was the right time. They were still young enough to enjoy it. Besides, if it was the right time for Timothy, it had to be right for her. They’d always been in perfect sync.

  Now, though, Patricia and Timothy continued to claw at each other’s arms, neither one of them seeming to be sure if they were trying to right themselves or help the other. They did not have a live-in daughter to marvel at, only a mostly-unused guest bedroom where their Jessica stayed during the holidays. And without blackboards, they had no stories to tell in the car at the end of the day, no funny anecdotes about their students. There was only the plumbing and the grocery store and paper or plastic. They were together always, like silent, expressionless matching salt and pepper shakers.

  Here they were, staggering, tripping over themselves. For the first time in three decades, they were out of step with each other. Patricia glanced into the river below, too muddy that morning to show her own reflection. Just last week, Timothy had started talking about a horrible thing, a terrible thing—buying a camper. What was next—bingo? Playing slot machines? Would he buy her awful gold lamé sneakers? Did he know her at all? When he looked at her, didn’t he still see the girl who adored Spr
ingsteen and had a tattoo of a four-leaf clover on the back of her left shoulder? A girl who loved pyrotechnics and laughed through the fastest fair rides? A woman who had run all these years, right beside him, never tiring? A woman who had stood in the window of the home they’d shared, shaking her head at the world—the tornadoes pulling down from the sky and the ice storms and the droughts—and muttered, “That all you got?” Didn’t he remember? Or did he now see a strange old woman whose appearance surprised him every bit as much as his new gray hair surprised her? Patricia squinted harshly, as though trying to will her own still sturdy, still vibrant reflection to show up, even in the murky waters.

  “Ready to get back in it?” Timothy asked, refusing to completely let go of her arm.

  She nodded, squirming out of his grip. But as their feet began moving, they couldn’t find it—that comfortable rhythm of theirs. Where had it gone? They were the same height, with legs nearly identical in length. They were both in great physical shape—no weight to lose, bifocals to buy, or hearing aids to hide. They were the same age. They had done this before—thirty times now. Why was this suddenly so awkward, so hard?

  At the end of the bridge, the two of them were faced with another choice, another confused arrow, this one pointing in three different directions.

  “Main road,” Timothy said, pointing toward the paved road that stretched along the edge of Founders Park.

  Patricia glanced the other way. They’d never run along the muddy riverbank before. She liked the fact that there were no plants down there—at least, not yet. That it looked wet and barren all at the same time. There was promise in that, it seemed.