Bridges

by Janice McLeod

  After their brief conversation, Gina hung up the phone and stared out the window unable to move. Gina remembered the number of times she had stared out that very same window after Sonny left, praying that the next car to come down the street would carry him back to her, and the total and utter despair she felt as she came to realize he wasn’t coming back. Now, soon, in a few short hours he would be here and the thought of it seemed so unreal. Carol looked at Gina and asked if that was Vie on the phone and were they coming over to see Sam, as they often did on weekends. Gina continued to silently star out the window as if in a trance. Finally Carol put down the breakfast plate she was washing and stood before Gina with a concerned look on her face. “What is it” Carol asked. Looking up at her mother with tears in her eyes she said, “Mom I just talked to Sonny, he is at home in Jesup”.

  Arrangements had been made for the Boone’s to drive up to Savannah that afternoon, arriving around 2:00pm. Gina, still in shock, not able to let her emotions go, spent the rest of the morning bathing Sam and putting him in his best rompers, kissing his little man cheeks and tickling him. His happy face squealed with delight and Gina again saw Sonny in his sweet baby smile. Sam was two and a half now and only knew Sonny as a picture on his mother’s bedroom dresser. She silently wondered how Samuel, who was usually a happy, friendly boy, would react to meeting his father for the first time. She hoped with all her heart that he would learn to love him as she had, and still did. Then it was her turn to spruce and beautify. Holding her favorite dress up before the mirror, she remembered Sonny loved her in vibrant lavender colors so she pulled it on over her head and smoothed the cotton sheath over her hips. While she checked herself in the mirror again, she realized, she was no longer the same young girl Sonny had left standing in the yard so long ago. She had grown up fast and become a mother to her son and was developing a career. And what about Sonny, how might he have changed? The anxiety, fear and love she felt was all swimming around in her head, along with the butter fly’s’ in her stomach. “Dear God help me through this” she said out loud, to the face that stared back at her from the mirror.

  The Boones arrived on time. Carol had fixed some refreshments and was putting napkins out when Art came in to the living room and announced they were here. Gina took Sam’s hand as Art answered the door. The first one to enter the room was Sonny. Reaching out to Art for a handshake, Sonny noticed a cool reserve in his response as his questioning eyes searched his own. Carol rushed up to Sonny and hugged him immediately and kissed his cheek saying, “Oh Sonny I just can’t believe you are here”. Ending the embrace he looked past Carol and saw Gina for the first time in two and a half years, his eyes fixed on her glowing face. Then his glance dropped to the short little man standing by his mother’s side who was smiling. He seemed so happy to be invited to this grown up party, because Nana had baked his favorite cake.

  Gina stood still, staring at Sonny; the very sight of him took her breath away. The moment she had dreamed of, during her lonely fitful nights and prolonged empty days of willful desire, were fulfilled in that instant, as Sonny slowly crossed the room, searching her teary eyes for the love and longing he himself now felt. As she smiled and dropped Sam’s hand to reach for Sonny’s open arms, the two embraced in a rapture of sweet innocence, as if for the first time. While they held each other, little Sam moved quickly, laughing, to crab hold of his mother’s leg, wanting to play the hug game too. Sonny’s parents embraced each other in tears of joy, while Art and Carol stood holding hands, smiling at their children.

  And so it was, that the fortunes of life and the ties that bind, once rent and broken, were finally reconciled. Sonny Boone, a son of the south, had at last found his way home. The bizarre twist of fate that had devastated the lives of these two families; held suspended in their collective pain and loss, were ultimately given solace. In the weeks and months that followed, this young couple put their lives back together and their joy was greater for their loss. Happily, in the center of this merciful, miraculous union, sat smiling Sam; the heart beat of their existence.

  Sonny eventually went to work in the family business and later as owner, expanded the operation to include four more stores in the greater Georgia area. Gina had two other children in subsequent years; a daughter Ava, who resembled her and another son, whom they named Thomas, for Father Ed, who had come to Savannah at his birth and also to delivered a letter he had received at the mission from the Army, that had arrived for Sonny just a month after he had returned home. It listed all of his personal information; who he was, where he was born and when, also his parent’s names, and where he had entered the service. A mystery solved too late.

  Folded in one-an-others’ arms, standing on the deck of their Tybee Island home, gazing out over the windswept ocean and the rolling surf; Sonny and Gina watch as their three children chase and play tag among the mounded sand dunes; their sea oat flags fluttering in the breeze. Sonny nuzzles Gina’s neck and asks if she remembered their first night together at the beach, on their short honeymoon years ago, “Yes, I will always remember”, she said and he held her closer and kisses her cheek. Over the joyful laughter of their romping children is the roar of the sea and the never ending ebb and flow of the tide that continues; like the endless stream of humanity, the many souls that have passed through this lush sub-tropical realm; who have walked over these same cobble stones streets and entered these same iron gates; having their own legacies and stories to tell. This is one.

  A Tiny Tickler Bonus Story; what can go wrong, when you put a Scottish farmer in a gated retirement community in Florida? Read “Behind the Gate” to find out.

  BEHIND THE GATE

  Donald Ross was a fine Scottish gentleman with an even temperament and earthly sensibilities. He had been raised on the land after all and as a natural course developed a keen love for animal husbandry and the like. Even though he had lived in America for several years, he was schooled in and held an affection for his Scottish heritage and as a result had made several trips to the old homeland over the years. For decades he had participated in the Scottish American community and had done all he could to provide funds and ingenuity to help organize the Scottish Highland Games held throughout the southeastern states every year. The games host such odd events as the sheath toss, where one forks a large bale of hay and pitches it over the back of the shoulder as far as one can for a distance record, then there’s the boulder toss which is self explanatory, and the Caber toss, turning what looks like a telephone pole, end over end for a distance score. It goes without saying that a certain amount of girth is required of each participant. It would seem to the outsider that the ancient Celts had an odd adaptation to the sporting world and in that notion they would be right. Aha, and then there is the whole other issue of the bag pipes. The high pitched whine and drone of what some have laughingly called a cat in a bag. It is indeed a strange looking instrument, resembling an octopus, with its bag and various tentacle like appendages that yelp when squeezed properly. Oh, but how its evocative notes, stirs the heart of the Highlander.

  On occasion Donald Ross was known to cut quite a figure as a kilted man in his day; proudly adorned in the ancient plaid of the Ross clan, with his short, cut-away, fine wool field jacket and sporran, a pouch worn in front at the waist to carry supplies such as tobacco, money and the keys to the BMW. The formal attire is a variation on a theme, with the same kilt, but now sporting a Bonnie Prince Charles short, black dress jacket that may be worn with a cumber bun and bow tie if needed. It was at such moments of formality that Flora, Donald’s beloved wife, would swoon like a school girl, marveling at her luck to have the affections of such a man, whom she often referred to as her Norse God.

  At the mature age of eighty—four, Donald found himself no longer able to manage a large property with extensive gardens and animals to tend; and so it was, that he traveled to Florida, to reside in a retirement community, spending the rest of his days in quiet repose, tending his pott
ed plants on the extended lanai, and visiting with his son the Piper as they reminisced about his last trip to Old Scotia. But can you ever really take the farm boy Highlander out of the man and tuck it away behind the iron gates of a retirement community without repercussions. Can the kilt be hung in the back of the closet along with all that he ever was and adapt him to his new surroundings, the place where life had led him? That indeed was the question to be answered, and where our story begins.

  As Donald and Flora were out in their very small yard one morning, having finally straightened out their house from the move, they turned their attention to the neglected flower bed just beyond their patio. Reaching for their coffee cups they gazed at the perimeter of their new “Estate”. They had exchanged their acres for a postage stamp that snuggly surrounded their duplex condo, like a fat lady in a girdle hoping to contain her splendor without spilling over. Yes, their new accommodations were nice, clean, and just large enough to contain their favorite furnishings, yet small enough to be quite manageable for two people in their later years. But with all that said, as they sipped their coffee that morning, they wondered about the prospects for their new life that was going to take some getting use to. “So what with all the rain” says Flora, “I do believe we could graze sheep in the side yard, the grass has grown so tall”. “Aye it has” says Donald now swallowing the dregs of his cup and motioning for Flora to refill it, which she dutifully does from her sideboard on the patio. Flora then sits down beside her dear husband, on their iron glider with the bright orange cushions, and as he gently rocks her he inquires, if he were to buy her a sheep to graze the side yard, what kind would she like? Playing with him, for she can’t resist, she says “Well a Dartmoor of course.” At this pronouncement he pats her on the knee and says, “That’s a mighty fine choice, but I might have to go all the way to Devon, England to find one, because they have become so scarce”. They sip at their coffee and chuckle at their nonsense as they glide back and forth, each now deep in their own thoughts. The flower bed goes unweeded, perhaps another day.

  Now a quick word on the Dartmoor Sheep! The extra wooly creature has the look of a shag rug on legs. It is furry to the extreme, so much so, that its modest head all but disappears in the fluff. When full grown it is the size of a standard collie. They are known to out produce wool by any other breed, the quality of their wool being superior. This breed of sheep hails from Devon England, where they are now locally managed by an association of growers, for they have been placed on the endangered species list. So as Donald sits on the glider that bright, summer morning, he thinks to himself what a fine sheep the Dartmoor is and how he would still like to have one; and this is where the trouble begins.

  As the weeks come and go and the summer wanes on, one morning Flora, after a strenuous round of housekeeping, pours her-self a class of iced tea and heads to the patio for a rest. It is then she notices for the first time, her dear husband, who has been missing in action for the better part of the morning, is now in the far corner of the backyard, working on some type of construction project. Curiosity getting the better of her, she saunters across the lawn and asks Donald what he is doing. With a prideful grin on his manly, whiskered face he replies he is building an enclosure for a wee garden plot. He then points to several pots of veining Jasmine and says that when they spread they will completely cover the outside of his structure and no one will even realize that it is there. Flora treads lightly and asks if such elaborate measures are necessary for two tomato plants and a few green peppers? At this Donald tells Flora that here in the wild, subtropical climate of Florida, it is entirely necessary to protect ones produce from the exotic vermin that lay just beyond their hedge in the jungle. Wide—eyed she immediately retreats to the safety of the patio. Case closed.

  On the first Wednesday of each month, Flora elected to join a book club, which she tried to attend with some regularity; thinking it was a good way to make new friends in her golf and country club community. Two weeks later on club day, after a stimulating discussion on the book of the month and a sumptuous lunch at the club house, Flora returned home to find her husband beset with glee. She laughed at his boyish behavior and asked what on earth had him so tickled? As she laid down her purse he gently took her by the arm and escorted her outside, waltzing her across the yard toward the enclosure he had built. With a beaming face, he opened the gate and bowing at the waist and motioned for her to go inside with the gallant gesture of his swooping arm. As she walked inside she squalled, her hands brought to her mouth to muffle her astonishment. There, huddled in the corner of Donald’s ten by ten foot, boxed enclosure was a Dartmoor sheep. In total wonder she advanced on the young lamb, bent down and rubbed its wooly coat and began to laugh hysterically. “What have you done you mad man?” Flora chided Donald, as he joined her in fondling the baby sheep. “Donald you know you cannot house a sheep within a gated community, what were you thinking”? She choked out, as she began to laugh all over again. “I’ll tell ya what I was thinking,” said Donald; “I was thinking DOG”! “What do you mean dog,” asked Flora, a look of surprise peaking her brows. Donald went on to explain that all their neighbors had at least one, if not two dogs that they walked up and down the street on a leash; and that really, one man’s dog could be another man’s sheep, as long as the sheep looked like a very furry dog. By this time Flora was holding her sides trying to suppress more laughter, so the neighbors wouldn’t hear and come to investigate. Flora was further amazed when out of Donald’s old jacket pocket, he pulled a dog collar and lead. “Darling” Donald said, “Do you remember when you were a child and had a pet lamb named Buggo”? Flora acknowledged that was true. “Well”, he said, “Look at the name on the tag of the collar I bought’’. As she looked she grinned, and again her hands flew to her mouth in astonishment. “Oh for heaven sakes Donald, I can’t believe you have done this”! she replied. After an extended time of bonding, feeding and bedding down their new pet Buggo, Flora and Donald went inside to have some supper of their own and formulate a strategy for dealing with this secret, new resident, behind the gate.

  After a few weeks of acclimation and growth, the time had come for a trial run; that meaning, the dog Buggo was to launch out on his new lead for a promenade up and down the street of his cloistered community for the usual letting and exercise. After a quick brush of his fur and adjustment to his collar, Donald grabbed his pipe and walking stick and the two set out. It was a fine morning full of promise and the slight breeze added pleasure to their leisurely stroll up the sidewalk. Buggo, though still a lamb, with his long hair fluffing out nicely was not accustomed to a lead. From time to time he would balk as he was encouraged to come along, but for the most part seemed happy enough to doddle about on his short little legs beside his master, taking in the sights. The first test came when Mrs. Arnold appeared on the street with her two high strung, red Pomeranians. As Mrs. Arnold spotted Donald from afar, and commenced to wave and shout greetings, her two small dogs began to yap and strain at their leads in the direction of Buggo. The closer she got, the more her two small dogs went into frenzy, darting at Buggo, trying to pick up his scent. At the same time Buggo stretched out his front legs, put his head down and bucked, kicking his hind legs at the yapping intruders. Mrs. Arnold finally reigning in her animals, looked perplexed, as she asked Donald what breed of dog he had, commenting she had never seen such a dog as his. Donald, pulling Buggo up tight beside him and fluffing his fur, proudly proclaims the beast to be a Scottish Highland Sheep dog, a rare breed from the Isle of Skye in the Hebirdes. At that Mrs. Arnold chuckles and says “Darned if he doesn’t look like a dog in sheep’s clothing”, and with that Donald cocks his head to one side and says “Aye lass” and with a big broad smile, he bids her good day.

 

 

 
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