PURSUIT: A Novel – 12: Hero

Kansas University – Wednesday Evening, March 8, 1989

Eva held Christina’s hand as they continued their walk on the dirt path to a clearing of Texas bluegrass that was just beginning to flower. Redbud trees edged the quaint meadow with their clusters of magenta pink blossoms.

“I feel like there is more to the story about my father.” Christina stopped to lower her hoodie to let the early evening sun warm her face. Eva quietly watched her expression and patiently waited for her to continue. The deeply suppressed memory surfaced, her face in a trance as the scene began to play . . .  

v v v

The piercing anguish of the wail had filled her childhood kitchen as her mom screamed a guttural cry of lament. “Noooo! Agghhhh! Nooo . . . ”  

“Mommyyy!” Chrissy ran to the kitchen, a powder blue, unicorn pony held tightly in her hand.

“Nooo . . . it can’t be . . . no . . . no . . . no.” Her mom wailed and sobbed, face flushed and smeared with tears as she sat in the kitchen chair. Hands gripped a letter in the lap of her red and white-checkered sundress.

“Giovanni . . . Ohhh . . . Giovanni . . . Huh, huh, huhhh . . . ”

Chrissy stared, eyes wide with fear, petite shoulders trembled as she clutched the pony to her chest. She stood underneath the extended countertop and began to sob a little, like a hurt child.

Mom must have loved Giovanni very much because she was very sad.

v v v

A tear crested Christina’s eyelash. Her lips taut as she remembered her mom’s pain and her lack of understanding during the oldest memory she could recall.

“Oh, Chrissy.” Eva held her close. “Let it out. Don’t hide it anymore. This walk has a divine purpose. It’s time to move on. Surrender your pain. Let go and let God heal your heart.”

A solitary tear slid over her cheek. A yellow and black butterfly lifted from a lavender wildflower and fluttered up and crisscrossed above the meadow and climbed higher and higher until it disappeared over the trees.

They walked passed clumps of bluebells and spiderwort, and the delicate, five-petal, white spring beauty. “When I was twelve,” Christina said as the image in her childhood kitchen dimmed and she turned towards Eva, “I asked my mom why my dad never came home. She only said that the enemy captured him, and she didn’t know where he was. I still had hope that we would find him, or that he would find us. My ballerina dance became unique as I got caught up in the vision of dancing with him, seeing my dad as a brave soldier who would be my hero when he returned.”

The walk to the coffee shop from the university theater wound through the wooded area of campus alongside a stream that filled a small lake, a natural refuge for wildlife and flora that was now in full bloom, the perfume of its pollen wafting in the air. Swans graced the still waters and deer watered peacefully at its edge. The sun was near setting as the birds sang their last tribute to light before nightfall. Crickets and tree frogs added to this forest symphony. A swan picked up speed on her glide through the water, flapped her wings and took flight as Christina and Eva approached the lakeside on the mulched path. The swan skimmed the water with the tips of her wings as she swooped up, then glided into a curve to swoop down for a graceful landing, barely disturbing the water except for the ripple that emanated from her beautiful white body. The swan’s elegant control and strength, synchronized to make the tight turn at the narrow end of the lake, brought to Christina’s mind images as a senior in high school of her freestyle dance, a mix of athleticism, contemporary dance, and ballet.

“My dad was my hero, a prince who would rescue his princess—a ballerina that escaped a fatherless reality by dancing with him. That all changed when I had my first period. Mom talked to me in great detail about sex. She talked about how important it was for me to wait until I was married. At the time I found it repulsive that I would have sex with anyone, although I dreamt of being married to— ” She looked away, embarrassed by her confession. “To the hero that I made of my father. I asked Mom why she didn’t marry daddy. She said they were to get married, but he had to wait until he finished his military assignment. As I matured and guys became attracted to me, I was very wary and untrusting.”

“Ha! Best for you, girl. There wasn’t a guy in high school grown up enough to trust.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that!” Christina laughed with Eva, breaking the seriousness of the moment. They walked along the lake and watched the ripples made by the swans as she reflected on the topic of trust.

“I think that’s why I began to have difficulty imagining dancing with my father when I questioned the reality of his existence as I entered high school . . . ”

v v v

While in high school, Christina no longer took dance lessons and preferred to dance alone, before and after the lessons she offered at Ms. Rivers’ studio. She worked one-on-one with the young girls that Ms. Rivers had singled out as having potential to perform inspirational dance and to develop the imagery of dancing with and following the lead of an imaginary partner.

Christina demonstrated a set of moves for her twelve-year-old student, a naturally beautiful girl who had yet to develop the curves that would eventually define her.

“Okay, Becca, close your eyes,” Christina said as she changed the CD to another selection. “We’ll do the waltz together, so you can get the feel of gliding and moving with someone. I will lead, you follow.”

Christina began the dance, and Becca quickly adapted to following her lead. After they completed a series of steps, Christina coached her as they continued to dance.

“Your movements are more than memorizing steps. You need to imagine a partner and see his moves and mirror them. That’s what we’re working toward. Dance as if you’re dancing with your boyfriend.”

“I don’t have one,” Becca said.

“Then dance with the cutest boy in your class.”

Becca giggled. “All he knows how to do is hip-hop.”

“Okay . . . dance as if you’re dancing with your dad.”

“Ewww, I can’t ever imagine doing that. He’s so klutzy.” They both laughed and broke their rhythm. Hands on hips, Becca stood looking at her, as if to say, Ya got any more ideas?

“I know what you mean. I can no longer imagine dancing with my father like I did when I was your age. It’s been too long. He no longer fills my heart.”

Christina had realized the limitation of imagining something different while being limited by the image of what was real. She had created an apparition of her father because she had never met him. He had become in her mind the most magnificent dancer—capable of lifting her from the floor and spinning her mid-air. After she had developed a lithe and slender body and high cheekbones that sculpted her luminous complexion, her impression of men were those with whom she danced, none capable of fulfilling the expectations she had for the perfect man, one who would always be there, no matter what.

“Okay, enough for today. We’ll try a different approach next time,” Christina said as she clicked off the music and walked to the studio windows that overlooked the street below. “Your mom’s waiting at the curb. She must not have been able to find a parking spot. You run down real quick now, and I’ll see you next week.”

“Thanks, Christina,” Becca said as she sprang to her tiptoes and kissed her on the cheek and giggled. “You’re the bomb.”

v v v

The flashback faded and Christina focused on her surroundings at the edge of campus on the street leading to the coffee shop. “I guess I walled off the pain, the feelings of not being able to trust even my dad. He never came back for us. No one knew who he was under the name my mom knew him by. Was he a lie?” She asked not for an answer, but rather to indicate the source of her suspicion of men. Eva placed an arm around her best friend and housemate.

“Ahh, Chrissy, that took a lot of courage to share all of this with me. You’ve had this bottled up for so long, so many years. What is stirring inside that has opened your heart again?”

“Let’s get a chai, Eva. I need to clear my head a bit. All of this about my father has put me in a funk.” 

“Sounds good. Our favorite hangout is just across the street.” Eva nodded in the direction of the coffee shop.

They passed the small grocery, a remnant from the past when neighborhood shops thrived within walking distance of the community, now replaced by the mega discount stores on the outskirts of town that served a commuter lifestyle. Yet, the shops near campus continued and survived on the amplified student population during nine months of the year.

They crossed the street mid-block, the large windows across the front of the coffee shop provided ample view inside, as well as an intriguing place to sit and watch the passers-by—an eclectic collection of students and the Kansans in denim and boots that expressed a laid back feeling about life. Farms and cattle filled the landscape outside of Old Towne. Other students from cities throughout the state brought a metropolitan look typical of large universities. 

Christina cast out the memories of her imaginary father as she noticed the table in the corner by the window where she first met Jerry. Funny how her reminiscence of childhood came about after her encounter with this man that was strangely different from the guys she had met on campus, yet there was something about him that seemed familiar.

The radiant glows of rose reflected off the cloud cover overhead, a sign of the Creator’s beauty wherever she looked. The old wooden door of the coffee shop creaked and expressed its weariness of students who favored this place to relax after a tedious day of lectures.

They both ordered an iced chai latte with no-fat milk. Christina plopped into an overstuffed chair to rest—her body drained from the dance workout and her heart weary from her childhood reflection. She mused on this sincere young man, a man of dreams yet realized. Deep in thought, she sipped her tall glass cupped in both hands.

 “I was reflecting on when I first met you at church, Easter of our freshman year,” Christina said. “I hadn’t danced since the summer before at the studio. My heart was blocked. I no longer yearned for my unknown father. He was either an unsolved mystery or a lie. It was like I didn’t know what to do next. I felt depressed, and I dealt with it by pushing it down, covering it up, like a bad habit I didn’t want to face.”

Eva nodded in agreement to encourage her to continue.

“All of those childhood years, I relied on my imagination to get me through the ups and downs and struggles in life.  My hero was my dad, yet I did not know him. When reality sunk in that my dreams were a sham—that there was no dad, there was no hero, that I would never meet my father—I felt lost, living life with no direction. I chose nursing because my mom was a nurse, and it provided a good income that supported the two of us. She never had to rely on a man, yet in my dreams, I did. But my dreams shattered. I didn’t know what to do . . . ”

v v v

  

Copyright 2017  © Jeff Cambridge

Excerpt from PURSUIT, a novel by Jeff Cambridge, a writer of transformational fiction with characters that tell life-changing stories.

This is a pre-published scene.

To read the scenes sequentially, begin with

“PURSUIT: A Novel – Prologue”

Your comments are welcomed and appreciated. Simply check one of the reaction boxes below, write a comment, or email me at bycambridge@gmail.com.

This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.