Tilting at Windmills (15 page)

“Like I said, it’s just a hobby,” she said. “And it’s very soothing. I can’t tell you the number of days I’ve spent inside my windmill, days when Janey’s been at school, days she just sat and played beside me. That day . . . that sunset—it really happened. I took a photograph, and I knew it needed to be painted.”

She let me pore over the paintings a while longer and then finally coaxed me away and closed the closet doors. She told me to follow her.

There were three windows on the second floor of the windmill, each facing a different direction, but as she led me over to them, I noticed they were more than just windows. They were doors.

“This is my favorite part,” she said, and opened one of the doors.

I’d seen from the ground that the windmill had a railing encircling it, but I hadn’t realized completely that you could actually walk outside it, indeed walk around the entire perimeter of the windmill. But you could, and we did, Annie once again taking hold of my hand and leading me forward. We were probably twenty feet above the ground, not terribly high, but from this perspective there was a sense of being higher than the clouds, able to reach out and touch the sky and float on the air and bask in the sun. Annie led me around and around, and we circled the windmill in near dizziness. Finally she brought us to a stop, just behind the turning sails, to where I could look above and almost touch the thick metal pole that held the sails so firmly.

And there Annie and I remained, two people who had both known sorrow but who now found joy in the unlikeliest of places, atop a lonely and majestic windmill. We stood with our hands clasped and our hearts full, the two of us strangers no more. Time could have stopped, save for the gently turning sails of the windmill.

S
ECOND
I
NTERLUDE

G
erta, as promised, arrived at eight o’clock, ready to hustle Brian out and on his way to the hospital while she cooked breakfast for Janey. But that wasn’t the calm picture that awaited her at the Sullivan farmhouse. Instead, a frantic Brian appeared at the front door.

“I can’t find Janey.”

Which was followed by an explanation of what had happened that morning, Cynthia’s phone call, Annie’s being taken for “tests,” Janey’s accidentally overhearing it all. She’d run away and Brian couldn’t find her.

“Where have you looked?”

“Everywhere.”

“The windmill?”

“First place I looked.”

“The barn?”

“Locked, so she couldn’t have made off on her bicycle.”

The only other place Brian had been able to think of, a place where Janey might go to connect with her mother’s presence, was the place he had dubbed “Annie’s Bluff,” but that was a hike, not easily found on foot, especially not by a seven-year-old, even a determined one.

“I don’t know what to do, Gerta. Help Cynthia at the hospital or . . . keep looking for Janey. If only I could talk to her, ease the pain she’s feeling, the confusion, answer her questions. Hell, if only Janey would just show herself, at this point I’d sneak her into the hospital to see Annie.”

“She’ll be back. She’s scared and eventually she’ll realize she needs someone—she needs you. Right now, you’re all that sweet thing has.”

They decided to split up, with Gerta taking the outdoors and Brian taking the indoors, and it was on his fourth trip upstairs that he heard a rustling sound. It seemed to be coming from above, from the attic. He circled back from Annie’s room, where the clock—in the shape of a windmill—announced the time with nine revolutions of its sails. How Annie treasured that clock; how comforting he suddenly found it. That was the thing about clocks and watches, there were always more seconds and minutes and hours, more time to come, more time to achieve the things you had yet to accomplish. There was still time to hope.

The time, though, had come to find Janey, and he dashed up the stairs to the attic, and that’s where he finally found the tousle-haired girl, nearly lost in a sea of cardboard boxes, their contents littering the floor of the attic. Janey looked up at him and wiped her dripping nose.

“You okay?” he asked her.

She said nothing, just held her stuffed purple frog, held it tight. When Brian moved closer, she scampered back a few feet but found herself backed up against a cardboard box. Brian was close enough to her now to see that her eyes were red, swollen. Nearly two hours had passed since he’d last seen her, and his heart broke at the thought she’d been alone all that time.

“Janey, talk to me, please.”

She still wouldn’t talk, but at least she didn’t move away from him. Progress, he thought. She’s opening up.

“Janey, I’m sorry. For . . . everything. For your not being able to see your mom, for not telling you the truth . . . but Janey, let me help you. It’s the only way I can help your mom right now—by helping you.”

She sniffled. Then, in a flash, she rushed into Brian’s waiting arms, burying her face against his chest as sobs wracked her small body. Now wasn’t the time for words, so he just held her, tightly, vowing then and there to never let her go, not as long as she needed him, even if it meant forever. Life was delicate, but youth was fragile and needed to be handled with care and love. Brian found himself smiling, realizing how lucky he was to have this little girl in his life, how full she’d made it in such a short time.

Finally, Brian spoke. “Hey, what are you doing up here, anyway?”

She brushed away tears, staring up at him. “I came to find something.”

“And did you find it?”

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Can I help?”

“You don’t know where they are.”

Brian looked at the mess on the floor. “Seems neither do you. So maybe four eyes are better than two.”

She resigned herself to his help. “Okay, start digging.”

Brian eased in closer to her, studied the contents of the box now opened before them. It was full of photographs that had yet to be placed in albums and rolled-up canvases painted by an obviously talented yet untrained hand. They were Annie’s illustrations from years ago. Raw but filled with bright colors, reds and yellows and oranges. Sunny, like the woman herself.

“If you tell me what we’re looking for, maybe we’ll be done sooner.”

“Plans,” she said.

“Plans? What kind of plans?”

“For the windmill, silly. Momma kept them, from the last time she rebuilt it. If we find them, we can make it turn again. And then Momma will be better, I just know it.”

Brian couldn’t help it, not here and not now, seeing how brave and hopeful and, yes, innocent she was. The tears rolled down his cheeks. They intensified as Janey tried to comfort him, hugging him tight and telling him that she knew her idea was the perfect solution. Finally he was nodding his head, agreeing with her.

“I had the same idea, sweetie,” he said. “I want to rebuild the windmill, too. But I don’t know how.”

“I do—the plans!”

“Then let’s find them.”

The two of them—a team now—continued to search the many boxes, poring through mementos and photographs, culling the stacks of material, going deep into the attic until, at last, they’d found what they’d been searching for.

“That’s the box!” Janey exclaimed.

Brian removed the thick duct tape and took off the box top, exposing a treasure trove of items. What he wanted, Janey said, was at the bottom, and it took a few seconds for him to dig down, careful not to damage the other family mementos that filled the box.

It was amazing to Brian that the Sullivans had kept so much of their family history. This included a lot of information about the windmill and, in particular, the architectural plans, which he found at the bottom of the box, rolled up and crinkled, the rubber band long since snapped. Brian took hold of them, scurried over to better light, and unraveled the plans so he could see them. A series of drawings and numbers, it might as well have been Greek to him.

“Can we do it?” Janey asked, her mood brightening, a dramatic difference from only moments ago.

Truthfully, he had no idea. “Yeah, we can.”

“So, it’s a good plan?”

“Yes, Janey, a brilliant plan.” And that’s when he had his own brilliant plan, or at least that’s how he saw it. There was no denying what needed to be done.

“Janey, time to get dressed. You need to visit someone.”

H
e knew it would be breaking the rules, but he didn’t care. At nearly eleven o’clock on that second morning after the accident, after Brian and Janey had together found the windmill’s plans, the two of them arrived in the parking lot of the hospital.

“Wow, it’s big!” Janey exclaimed, dancing with anticipation.

“You promised me, remember—”

“
—
to stay quiet.”

“If you want to see your mom, yeah.”

He got her all the way to the fourth floor with no problem, then got her to the waiting area of the ICU, where he found Cynthia and Bradley, her husband, both looking severely exhausted from their tour of duty. When they saw Janey, though, they both perked up. Cynthia ran to embrace her.

Brian checked in with Bradley.

“How’s Annie?”

“She’s back in her room, apparently out of danger. Dr. Savage told us time would tell.”

“That’s all?” Brian asked. “Is Annie awake?”

Cynthia shook her head.

“Hence my secret weapon.”

“They won’t let her in.”

“Who says they have to see her?”

A plan was hatched, with Cynthia and Bradley distracting the nursing staff while Brian quickly led Janey into her mother’s room, covering her mouth as he did so as a precautionary measure.

“Momma!” Janey whispered as soon as the curtain was drawn.

Annie was asleep, as she had been for two days now, not a promising sign, Brian knew, but he also knew that her body needed the rest. The tube was still attached, breathing for her, and he explained this as delicately as he could to Janey. Gently, Janey held her mother’s hand, squeezed it.

“You rest, Momma, and I’ll come and visit and tell you about what Brian and me are doing. . . . Oh, Momma, it’s a wonderful surprise—”

“Ssshh,” Brian said.

She gave him a stern look. “I’m not gonna say what it is—that would spoil the surprise.”

Admonished, Brian smiled.

Janey was a strong child who’d weathered bad storms before and who had come shining through them like a burst of sunlight through a cloud. She had an amazing resilience that was easily transferred to those around her—Brian, Cynthia, Bradley, and, no doubt, Annie, too.

Suddenly, there was a flicker of life from the bed, the twitch of an eyelash, and Janey’s eyes opened wide with anticipation. Brian held the little girl’s other hand, and suddenly the three of them were connected. A link of life. And then Annie was awake. The first sight she saw was her daughter.

“Hi, Momma,” Janey simply said.

Annie managed a slight smile, but it was enough to thrill Janey.

“Momma, Brian’s here—he brought you a present. It’s one you have already, but he thought you’d like it here.”

Brian stepped forward and withdrew from a plastic bag the windmill clock from her bedside at home.

“Thought you’d like to see an old friend.”

A minute later, he had the clock plugged in, and he set the time to nearly noon, so that in only three minutes the sails of the windmill would turn a dozen times.

Janey giggled. Brian’s heart swelled. And Annie, a smile on her face, drifted back into a more peaceful slumber.

Brian knew he’d done the right thing, bringing Janey here. The doctors could give Annie medicine, they could guess and speculate and hope, but there was one thing they couldn’t accomplish. There were regions of the heart even doctors couldn’t reach. Only little girls could find their way there.

Janey. She was their hope; she was their future. She was Annie’s lifeline.

From the corner of the room, Brian watched as Janey snuggled in close to her mother and fell asleep, too, probably the first real rest she’d had in days. The sight was natural; they nearly glowed with life.

PART THREE

M
AY
- J
UNE

S
EVEN

S
o you’re still there?”

“I’m still here.”

“How long’s it been?”

“Uh . . . five weeks? Something like that.”

“I thought it had been a while since I’d gotten a new postcard,” he said. “Getting restless?”

“More like comfortable.”

“Brian Duncan, farmer. Who would have thought it?”

“John,” I said, my tone indicating I was getting tired of this banter, “I’m not a farmer. I just happen to be temporarily living in a small town that’s known for its farming—among other things. And note the key word there—
temporarily.
Someday, probably soon, I’ll be continuing my trip. I was thinking Maine might be nice for the late summer.”

“Not back to the city?”

“No, John; I’m not ready. I said six months and I’m sticking to it.”