Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace

by Watkins, Andra

  I winced and bit my lip when she butchered my name, but I didn’t correct her. People usually didn’t get it, even when I smiled and said, “It’s AN-dra.”

  Miss Ethel fingered her double string of pearls, her wrinkled face unreadable. “Well. Bless your heart. My Yankee husband’ll be sorry he died before he could meet the likes of you.” She swooshed one silk-clad arm. “Allow me to escort you to your room.” I followed the impressions her black pumps made in the carpet.

  Hours later, I looked at the clock on my phone and slipped my feet into some sneakers. “I have a sick feeling I’m seeing what my father was like when he was courting women.”

  Information no child, little or grown, wants to know.

  KING OF THE ROAD

  Roger Miller

  I wandered along the sloping veranda to the front house. Miss Ethel’s house. Crickets chirped a symphony in the garden. Through a portal of wavy glass, I spied on my father. His balloon stomach strained the integrity of a wooden side chair in Miss Ethel’s den. If I shifted to the left, I glimpsed her helmet of light brown hair bobbing over the back of the sofa. I could identify his stories by the hand gestures he used.

  Acres of Biscuits bled into Hot Shot to become the ridiculous Butterbean Song.

  “Dad!” I pushed through the door, chords of laughter still lingering in the chilly air. “I got your machine working, and—”

  “Andra!” Miss Ethel’s Mississippi drawl stretched my name to three syllables. “I’m sorry I got your name wrong. Roy here was just telling me you were named after Andra Willis. Is that right?”

  Dad cackled. “Yeah. Andra Willis. That singer on the Lawrence Welk Show.”

  Miss Ethel slapped one knee. “Why in the world would you name your daughter after a woman on the Lawrence Welk Show, Roy?”

  “Linda liked the name Leslie Lynn, but I didn’t know no Leslie Lynns. I sure did like that Andra Willis, though. Every time she sang, I made sure to watch. She was real pretty. I never got tired of looking at her, and—”

  “Dad! Ew! I don’t want to stand here and listen to you tell Miss Ethel about how you named me after some woman you thought was hot.”

  “I still see her sometimes. On them re-runs.”

  While Dad nursed his lust, Miss Ethel turned to me. “Anyway, do you really mean to walk all the way to Nashville, Andra?”

  Her question pushed me into a chair along the far wall. How many months had I thought about walking the Trace? Five? Ten?

  Four days a week for three months, I trained near my Charleston, South Carolina home. I trudged across the concrete bridge that spanned Charleston’s harbor and pounded my feet into the pavement of the West Ashley Greenway. During a winter storm, I zipped myself into rain gear and let the wind blow me around Charleston’s Battery.

  I spent weeks planning my route, measuring the distance between locations in my novel, deciding how to make them interesting to potential readers, and coordinating the publicity that would make my story a commercial success.

  Innumerable times, I wanted to quit, but my husband Michael told me I could do it. He often rode alongside me on his bicycle, cheering me onward. When people asked why he was letting me walk, he replied, “You obviously don’t know my wife.”

  I prepared myself physically. I studied every detail of the terrain. I had the most supportive husband alive.

  I was ready.

  When morning dawned, my book would have its official birthday, and my father would celebrate with me.

  Because he challenged me to make something of myself, nagging me into epic arguments. I wasn’t sure how I felt about having him along to witness my one valiant attempt, because I failed at everything else. Certified public accountant? It left no room for creativity. Managing a multi-million dollar company? I decamped with the beginnings of an ulcer. At forty-four, I was a decade into my third career as a management consultant. The 2008 crash shriveled my earnings from six figures to under $10,000 in less than twelve months. I woke up at mid-life, the peak of my income potential, with no clients and no prospects. No one was hiring, especially when the applicant was a middle-aged Southern woman.

  If I excelled at anything, it was failure.

  I launched my walk online to thousands of readers as a public dare to myself, to prove I could do something audacious.

  Life-long doubt assailed me. What if I couldn’t finish? Or nobody read the book? If Dad and I couldn’t stop fighting, what would I do?

  I couldn’t answer Miss Ethel through the obstruction in my throat. Instead, I fingered wooden arms and studied carpet patterns. In another room, a clock marked Time.

  Time!

  “Dad, you’ve got to let Miss Ethel go to bed. It’s late.”

  Dad ignored me and revved the engine of memory. “Did I ever tell you—”

  “I fixed your sleep apnea machine, and—”

  Miss Ethel’s laugh bisected our routine. “Has Roy ever told you he was a mistake?”

  “I’m beginning to think this whole trip was a mistake,” I mumbled but still turned to my father. Baited. “What mistake, Dad?”

  “Well. After my mother had your Aunt Lillian, the doctor told her she wouldn’t be able to have no more children. She was too tore up and all. You know, inside.” The chair groaned when he shifted his weight. “That’s why there’s so much age difference. Seven years between me and my older sister. Good thing my parents still liked each other after all that time, I guess.” Loose skin jangled when he laughed. “My mother always called me her miracle baby. ‘Course, I was her only boy.”

  I rested my elbows on my knees to halt the spin of the room. A new Roy story. One I hadn’t heard five billion times.

  The clock chimed ten. As the music faded, I clucked, “I always knew you were a mistake, Dad.”

  “Yep. Wasn’t ever supposed to be ole Roy.”

  Which meant I was even more miraculous. How many people made nothing of the miracle of Life?

  Life had to smile on me, because I was trying to make something of the miracle.

  “Let me tell you about that time—”

  “Dad, Miss Ethel needs to—”

  “—I was working with my father in the back field, and—”

  “Dad!” I hurried over and stood between him and Miss Ethel. He talked through me while I pried him from the chair. I forced him to say goodnight and herded him along the starlit walkway to our shared suite. A breeze rippled the bed canopy as I listened to him use the toilet with the door open and swab a brush across browned teeth. The bed protested when he climbed between the covers, and a wet chorus of breathing sounds started less than a minute later. On the last night of February 2014, I lay in the dark and tried to obliterate the noise of my sleeping father.

  “Your dad’s going to be okay, Andra.” Alice’s voice penetrated the murky room.

  I rolled on my side. “You don’t have to whisper. He can’t hear you.” The weight of his every breath pressed into my chest. “I mean…..I’m sorry. Bad habit, joking when you’re trying to be serious. I didn’t realize how much he can’t do anymore.”

  “But he’s excited about this adventure. I can tell from watching him. That’ll pull him through. That and how much he loves you.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, the whole Dad-loving-me part. I mean, I know he loves me, but he doesn’t say it much. Never has, really. I thought………..” I let my words dwindle into the crisp Mississippi night. Maybe I could finally figure out who my father was. Being together all the time might force us to talk, instead of cracking jokes and telling stories and yelling at each other.

  I rearranged the bedspread to gather my courage, to clear tears clogging my throat. “Well. All I can say is I hope he makes it through tomorrow without falling down stairs or peeing his pants.”

  “He doesn’t want me to leave you to walk alone.”

  I sat up and threw my legs over the side of the bed. My feet dangled above the floor like I lounged at the end of a pier. “But we’ve talked
about this. There’s no need for you to follow me for fifteen miles in the car when you could be out seeing pretty places around Natchez.”

  “I tried to tell him that.”

  “And?”

  The bed squeaked, and Alice was framed in a square of window light. I strained to see her face. “He’s really worried about you, Andra. He’s afraid something will happen. Fifteen miles along a lonely Southern highway. A woman. Alone. Unarmed. It’s like an engraved invitation for crazies.”

  “You know I have mace…..oh, wait. Don’t tell Dad that.”

  “Why not?”

  “He thinks I have a gun, and I don’t want him to know what I have, because he’ll tell people. He can’t keep a secret.”

  “All I can say is I don’t know whether he’ll let me leave you in the morning. He’s pretty damn determined.”

  I thought about Miss Ethel’s breakfast ritual. The morning meal at Hope Farm always happened at 8:30am sharp. While we sipped coffee and nibbled bacon, Miss Ethel wove yarns that bested any storyteller in the room. Even my father. She entertained everyone all through breakfast, followed by a mandatory tour of the house. Miss Ethel’s rules.

  I jolted off the bed. “The tour!”

  “What about it? ”

  “The tour will be how we’ll get Dad to stay here in the morning. We can beg off because of my schedule. You know, slip out right after breakfast, and you can take me to start my walk.”

  “Do you think Miss Ethel will mind?”

  “I’ll talk to her first thing. Roy Lee Watkins will not miss a tour that promises priceless antique relics. Especially if he thinks he might know more about them than she does.”

  I leaped onto the towering bed as Dad’s sleep machine crackled. Alice settled into her pillows and sighed. “I hope you’re right, Andra. I hope you’re right.”

  WALK THIS WAY

  Aerosmith

  When Dad followed Miss Ethel to the grand entrance of Hope Farm the next morning, Alice and I tiptoed through the kitchen. I lingered at the back door, listening to Miss Ethel describe her shock at the pricelessness of the urns on her mantle. “A museum curator from New Orleans almost had a stroke when he saw magnolia branches in those things. ‘But they’re vases’ I told him. He mopped his brow with a hankie and retorted that if I ever wanted to pay cash to send a child through medical school, I could sell just one of those vases. I keep ’em up there with nothing in ’em these days. Sad.” The grandfather clock chimed the half hour. “Well, let’s move on.”

  Alice cleared her throat. “Andra. We’ve got to go.”

  I shut the door and tramped down the back stairs to the car. Popping the trunk, I grabbed a value-priced tub of water and hoisted it onto the bumper. “If you work the nozzle, I’ll hold my CamelBak for you to fill it.”

  Alice pressed the white button on the jug while I tried to keep the pouch’s opening underneath. Water trickled from the white spout, like a hose with a kink. Alice cradled the container and shook it. “What’s the matter? Why isn’t any water coming out?”

  We fiddled with the nozzle to make sure it was open all the way. When that didn’t work, we peered through the clear plastic sides to spot obstructions. After numerous adjustments, we pressed the button to re-start the flow. Our collective machinations slowed it from a trickle to a drip.

  “It’s going to take ten minutes to fill at this rate,” I fumed. “Is there something else we can do?”

  We twisted the white cap on the other end of the unit. When nothing happened, we held either end and shook the container. I was ready to drop-kick the thing across the yard just as Alice clamped the sides with her elbows and squeezed. Water streamed into my CamelBak, a somewhat normal flow. “I can’t believe we’re two college graduates, and we can’t figure out how to make this thing work.” I laughed to mask a shudder along my insides.

  What was I doing? My walk was nothing more than a mid-life lark to stave off failure.

  I thought a lot about failure during my training. When my career evaporated, I barged into a local outdoor store and bought a $100 pair of Salomon sneakers on credit. I walked across bridges and wondered how to rebuild a consulting practice I didn’t enjoy. On lonely marsh pathways, I cried when I considered new beginnings. I poured frustration and despair into legs and feet and told Michael movement was changing my outlook.

  Until I awoke one morning with a sore ankle. A swollen foot.

  “Did you twist your ankle on a walk, Andra?” Michael lay next to me in bed and massaged puffy skin.

  “No. I don’t remember doing anything to it. My ankle just looked like this when I woke up.”

  Michael picked up his phone. “I’m making you an appointment with Stephen.”

  Stephen Khouri. Our chiropractor. While he adjusted college sports teams, he also took mortal patients like me. I sat in his office and watched him work tanned fingers around my ankle.

  “It’s dislocated. How much did you say you’re walking again?”

  “I’ve got to walk 444 miles in thirty-four days.”

  “When?”

  “Less than two months from now. I start March 1.”

  Stephen’s mouth dropped open. “And you started training when?”

  “A couple of weeks ago.”

  “How many miles are you doing at a time?”

  I only knew it wasn’t enough, but I pretended mental calculations. “Eight miles?”

  He scratched the fuzz on his head. “Other than the ankle, you’re in great shape, Andra. You’re keeping up your yoga practice, and it shows. I want you to come in once a week, and I’ll adjust it. Really, injuries like this are pretty common among my athletes.”

  “I’m not an athlete.” I shifted my 150-pound body on his table and rested my arms on my forties paunch.

  “You’re walking fifteen miles a day for thirty-four days?”

  I nodded.

  “You’re an athlete. Now, let’s take a crack at that ankle.”

  I pressed my face into the table and breathed through bone grinding on bone. Nobody ever called me an athlete.

  Except Dad.

  My father made an effort to change my mind about my athletic abilities sometime in my sixteenth year. When Mom bought a badminton set, Dad was the only person I wanted to play. Our birdies didn’t flutter. They zoomed back and forth across the net. I stood in the Southern twilight, scratching mosquito bites, oblivious to everything but the thrill of beating my father at a game that required true athletic skill.

  I always thought badminton gifted me with some coordination, but maybe Dad helped me find what already existed within myself.

  I blinked into the steamy Mississippi morning. Why was I thinking about badminton when I had a book to launch? Four hundred and forty-four miles to walk?

  Because walking across three states in thirty-four days required another level of grit.

  Several other levels.

  Maybe an entire quarry.

  I unfolded a map of the Natchez Trace Parkway. Its twelve sections reached the windshield when I opened it flat. Air from the vent mimicked ripples in the landscape. A bold line of highway snaked north, with eastward turns south of Jackson and near the Alabama state line. Meriwether Lewis stared at me, near the fold at the top of the third section, acknowledging my pilgrimage to his grave. An average of three days per section.

  Eternity yawned before me. At the beginning of any project, I always struggled to partition it into sections. I crumpled the map and threw it in the back seat. If I finished, would anybody care enough to read my novel?

  “We’re here.” Alice steered us into a pull-off. We stared at two stone pillars bisected by a wooden sign.

  Natchez Trace Parkway. Brown and yellow. Green and white.

  The beginning of everything.

  “Well.” I gripped the armrest to combat dizziness. Blood bansheed through my ears. But when I looked at Alice, I smiled. One of those fake smiles, like Mom and I always used when we wanted to pretend everything was fine.


  Because everything was fine.

  Really.

  I dragged my eyes back to the window. “If you just take a couple of pictures of me in front of that sign, I can get started.”

  Green eyes blurred with every heartbeat as I trudged to my first marker. Four hundred and forty-four miles was a long way to walk. Doubt gripped my insides, choked my ribcage, rebelled against air, but when I turned, I struck my usual pose: Mouth yawning open in a round O. Black pants. Gray shirt. Eyes wide. My toddler smile.

  For most of my life, faces masked truth. In that instant, I wanted to take refuge in the car and drive home. Back to Michael. To failed normalcy. I didn’t know what I would do with my life, but I couldn’t imagine anyone reading my words or caring about my walk. I couldn’t fathom making a wage from the written word. I could get a job at Starbucks and stop my nonsense, my draining of our household in a pursuit of a stupid dream. I—

  “I think these will work.” Alice returned my phone.

  For a second, I wavered between jumping and not jumping, between the first step and total flight. When I saw the trust on Alice’s face, I stood a little taller, banished doubt and took my phone. “I’m sure they will, but just in case…..” I scrolled through them. “I guess I should post one, right? Let everybody know I’ve started?”

  “Yeah.” Alice waited while I played with my phone, fighting to see the world through screens when experience magnified layers. Cemented memories.

  “Okay. This one. Done.” My mouth its widest. Fingers splayed. Me at my silliest.

  Silence engulfed me.

  Without anything to hide behind, my eyes sizzled to life. “I can’t believe I’m crying.” I swiped tears as Alice pulled me close. With a hug, she whispered, “Most people would never take five weeks to just walk. Alone. Through scary, remote, even dangerous places. You’re here. You’re doing it. Don’t wish it away. Promise me you’ll savor it, okay?”