The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

a toothbrush. That was no way to start a new life, the rest of her life. The end of her life. Gazing out the window, a field of sparkling lights covering the horizon, she watched as wisps of horsetail clouds caught in the landing lights created fantastical creatures in the sky. I’m a dead woman walking, like these formless shapes, she said silently to the face in the window. Coming and going, identity shifting. Things that used to matter, disappearing with the miles.

Clair thought about the simple story of letting go of the rice, of attachment and greed, of holding on so strongly that your very being was taken. Was her rice Adam? Devon? Life itself? Certainly, her hope, some would say, delusion, of finding Devon, or reconnecting with Devon, somewhere in the universe, might be a futile way of clinging to the impossible. Her rice. Had Adam been misplaced remorse, a target that was safe, risk-free? She couldn’t let him go, and wouldn’t allow him in. What kind of person does that? And now, it was over for her. Time had run out. Feelings of deep remorse and shame at her past behaviors caused her to moan out loud. The man next to her leaned towards her.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked, in a soft, quiet voice.

Night was thick, the lights of the city below spanning across hundreds of miles, into the valley and along the coastline. People were shuffling around the plane, preparing for their landing, next directions, new experiences.

‘Sorry,’ Clair said, glancing at him. ‘I must have been dreaming.’

‘I always fall asleep on planes too,’ he said. She noticed his eyes were deep brown, almost black, with specks of amber light flitting about in irises, opaque and clear.

‘Where are you off to? Or, is Seattle your home?’

A simple question, Clair thought. I could lie and tell him some story about going to visit a family member, or a conference, or a million other ways to create a life in the moment that would make sense. But something about him, his kind eyes, his gentle face, not young, with smile lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes. He looked so eager to hear what she had to say. His hands gave his age away. Spotted and wrinkled, as though having spent a long time in the sun. They rested quietly on his upper thighs, covered in soft, gray corduroy.

‘I’m going to Spain,’ she said. ‘Finisterre.’

‘Ah, a peregrina?’ he said. ‘Walking the Camino, to the End of the Earth?’

Clair smiled, broadly. ‘Something like that,’ she said, laughing softly. ‘How did you know?’

He shrugged, cocking his head to one side, a smile playing on his lips. ‘And what do you expect to find there?’ he asked, his eyes searching.

Shocked by his frankness, she sat quietly for a few moments, as the plane began its descent. Announcements overhead cautioned passengers to secure their seatbelts, return trays to the upright position, and other safety compliance instructions. Clair looked out the window as the ground rose up to meet them, runway lights like signal fires in the near distance.

Looking at the man, whose name she hadn’t bothered to ask, she smiled as he tightened his seatbelt. He seemed deep in thought, so she returned her gaze to the approaching tarmac. She didn’t know what she hoped to find. Wasn’t that the point of a journey? She had spent her life in a state of perpetual being; the perfect daughter, student, professor, wife, mother. Each of these roles had a set of rules, and she had been a rule follower. Set the formula, follow the equation to its end, and all will work out, had been her philosophy. Until Devon. Since his loss, Clair realized, feeling the plane bumping along, big engines pulling back, that now, she was in a state of becoming. And that like a chrysalis, her unfolding would come through her, not to her. She turned, laying her hand on his arm.

‘I don’t have any expectations,’ she said softly, as the plane touched down, causing her to grip the arm rest. Looking into his eyes, dancing now with curiosity. ‘I’m just taking things as they come, or trying to.’

‘I can tell you that whatever you think you might find, you will be wrong. And whatever you fear, you will be comforted. And whatever you need, the Camino will provide.’ He had lain his hand over hers. He gave a gentle squeeze, as people began standing and removing bags from overhead bins.

‘Buen Camino,’ he said as he began the shuffle towards the front of the plane.

‘Wait, I didn’t ask your name,’ Clair called out to his back.

But he was several passengers ahead of her now. She had remained seated, wanting to be last off the plane. Taking time to gather her courage for the next or first, she didn’t know, steps toward her becoming.

Perhaps it was like Jet had said, a process of cumulative trauma, this one last thing that tipped her balance. She realized she had been living in a sort of placebo effect, the treatments giving her false hope of survival. Thinking back to her first encounter with Dr Ellerby, she remembered him telling her that metastatic breast cancer could not be cured, but that they could hold it at bay for a while, possibly years. There were clinical trials, new treatments being developed every year. But this morning, reviewing her latest PET scans, and blood work, he said they had reached their limit. Her specific oncotype was not responsive to treatment. She had been so hopeful going into the appointment. Ellerby had said any further treatment would be like tweaking a jet plane as it was crashing. If she was going to crash, it would be on her own terms, in her own way. If she couldn’t be cured, then she would find a way to be healed.

Chapter 26

Clair

Sounds and lights assaulted her as she made her way through the airport, following signage towards the international terminal. Thoughts