Tilting at Windmills Page 25

  I stared up at Annie then, watching as she double-checked the tautness of the rope, thinking what an angel she looked like. I saw our future, a time that would bring three people together as a family. I called up to her, got her attention, and in a sudden rush of adrenaline and emotion, my arms thrust into the air, the ring box flat against my open palm, I said, “Annie . . . this is all that remains of my life in New York. I bought it there and brought it here, beside my heart. Marry me, Annie, I love—”

  My declaration was cut off. She never heard the last word; neither did I. A huge rumble of thunder ripped the sky, nearly shattering my eardrums as it passed directly overhead. Then lightning flashed down, once, twice, and then a third time in a streak of electric yellow that reached down from the heavens and struck the ground near my feet. Its force threw me to the ground and then I heard an awful cracking sound. I saw the sails begin to move, felt the rope give way and whip wildly out of control, slapping down hard in the muddy ground.

  Then I heard a scream. I wiped rain from my eyes and watched in numb horror as the windmill’s wooden sails, suddenly all ablaze, came separated from the holding winch and tumbled to the earth with a crashing roar. I tried to get up, slipped again in the mud, recovered, then raced over to the blazing heap of burning sails. Fire still sizzled over the wooden slats. I looked up to the ledge where Annie was standing to make sure she was fine. All I saw were flames engulfing the top of the windmill, flickering far and high, fueled by the wind. What I didn’t see was Annie. Frantically, I ran around the windmill, looking for any sign of Annie, but came up empty. Panic overtook me, and I was screaming her name at the top of my lungs, over and over, running and running until I came around the mill and saw a flicker of yellow on the ground, buried beneath the wrecked pile of wood that had, seconds ago, been the sails of the windmill. I knew what it was immediately, and awful dread filled me. That yellow was Annie’s windbreaker. I ran to her, recklessly tossing away broken pieces of wood until I could reach her. She lay facedown on the ground. She wasn’t moving. Dammit it, she wasn’t moving—that was all I could see, all I could wrap my mind around.

  “Annie, Annie, talk to me . . . please, Annie, let me know you’re all right. . . . Oh God . . .”

  I felt a jolt at my back—the touch of another person—and I jumped in surprise. A quick turn of my head, and I saw it was Chuck.

  “Call an ambulance,” I yelled. “Now!”

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Never mind, Chuck—just get help—get it now. If you care for anything or anyone, for God’s sake, help me.”

  Chuck ran off, and I was left feeling alone and helpless. I couldn’t touch Annie out of fear that I’d hurt her further, so I merely sat beside her while the rain and the hail and the wind blew past me and thunder and lightning raged overhead. There was nothing I could do, not now. Annie was beyond my help.

  I slunk down in the mud to wait, staring up at the charred remains of the windmill, then down at the silent figure of Annie Sullivan, the woman who had loved the windmill, the woman who had forever altered my life, for the good, for the better, for always.

  FOURTH INTERLUDE

  Nurse!” Brian shouted into Annie’s empty room.

  Brian opened the door to the hospital room, his heart beating quickly, his palms sweating. Fear crackled up and down his spine like water on a hot pan, as though his dream were coming true, that Annie was gone, truly gone.

  “Nurse!” he yelled again, and this time he got an answer.

  “Mr. Duncan, ssshh,” the duty nurse admonished him from her station across the hall. She was probably sixty, had gray hair, and reminded Brian of a stern teacher. He found himself obediently quieting down, but then found his resolve again. He approached the nurse and demanded to know where Annie Sullivan was. Was she all right?

  “Mr. Duncan, take it easy. Mrs. Sullivan was taken from her room early this morning.”

  “Where did they take her?”

  “They’ve taken her for further tests. Please, take it easy.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just . . .”

  Just what? That he dreamed the worst possible scenario, and then he awoke to find the room empty. Premonitions like that usually spoke the truth.

  “She’ll be back soon,” the nurse said, trying her best to comfort him. “The doctor’s just being cautious. That’s a good thing.”

  Yeah. But needing to be so cautious, that wasn’t.

  Brian was still frightened, and he found himself on the pay phone, calling Cynthia and Bradley, Gerta, too, urging them to get to the hospital and to bring Janey with them. Then Brian settled down to wait, for the Linden Corners version of the cavalry to arrive, for the doctor, or better yet, for Annie to return. He sat with his head in his hands, his hands clasped together in prayer. Even though the nurse had tried to be reassuring, Brian knew it wasn’t good news if a patient was taken from her room during the night. Something had happened. Something had gone wrong.

  The infection.

  Brian remembered the doctor’s words. They couldn’t be sure. But dammit, why not?

  The wait, it turned out, wasn’t long.

  Twenty minutes passed before Brian sensed someone standing before him. Taking his hands from his face, he looked up and saw Dr. Savage standing there, his face drawn.

  Brian ran a hand across his face, as though that might wipe away the worry he felt.

  “Doctor?”

  He hung his head, then sat beside Brian. Their shoulders touched, a small comfort. But it wasn’t enough.

  “We’re very concerned, Mr. Duncan. It’s as we feared. Annie has developed an infection, one we’re doing our best to fight. Medication is our only defense, but she’s not responding to it. I’m sorry. All we can do now is wait. She’ll be back in her room within the half hour and you can see her then.”

  “Dr. Savage, what are you saying? That—Annie could die?”

  “Speculation is useless, Mr. Duncan.”

  That, Brian found, was not the encouraging answer he’d hoped for.

  Just then, Cynthia turned the corner, and seeing the scene unfolding before her, the drawn expression on Brian’s face, the doctor sitting beside him, she stopped in her tracks. She couldn’t move. Janey, who was at her side, broke free and raced forward, sensing a feeling in the air and not liking the feeling at all, and she threw herself into Brian’s arms.

  Tears fell, his, hers, theirs. Two lost souls consoling each other.

  Brian looked at the doctor and said, “We have to see her.”

  We. Meaning he and Janey.

  It did not go unnoticed that today, there were no objections from the staff about a minor in the ICU.

  “Hi, Momma,” Janey said, kissing her mother’s cheek.

  “Hi, baby,” Annie said, her voice weak. Her face was sallow, and her eyes looked unspeakably tired. They’d been together forty minutes when Annie propped herself up and beckoned Janey to move in closer. “I want to tell you something, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “You, Janey Sullivan, are the most precious thing ever—the most wonderful person I’ve ever met, the best daughter a mother could ever have. And seeing as though you’re the best girl ever, I want you to promise me something.”

  The little girl gulped. She knew this was serious and so she listened hard.

  “Listen to Brian. He loves you very much.”

  “I love him, too,” Janey said.

  “You’re so lucky, Janey, so loved. Remember that. You are loved. Now, come here, sweetie.”

  Janey leaned in close and let her mother embrace her. She looked determined to hold on forever. Brian watched from the door, giving them space but hearing every word that was spoken between them. Annie grew tired and she at last released her daughter, but not before kissing Janey’s trembling face.

  “Let your mom rest, sweetie,” Brian said, moving closer.

  “One more hug,” Janey said.

  And so there were further hugs and promises
and expressions of dreams, and eventually Brian led Janey out of the hospital room. She joined Cynthia in the waiting room. Brian returned to Annie’s bedside.

  “You have a promise to keep, too,” Annie said.

  “No problem there,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Rest easy. And know, Annie, that Janey isn’t the only one who is loved.”

  “That makes two of us,” Annie said. And then, her voice barely a whisper, she pulled Brian in close. “We haven’t talked about . . . what you said—asked, just before the accident. Brian, you meant it, didn’t you?”

  A mixture of emotions ran circles around his heart as he realized she had heard and remembered his proposal, and before he could let another moment pass, he told her yes, yes, of course he meant it, more than anything in the world, and as if to prove it, and knowing that actions do speak louder than words, he withdrew from his pocket the ring he’d kept with him since that fateful day of the storm.

  “Will you wear my ring?” Brian asked Annie, and through tears that rolled down her pale cheeks, she nodded.

  Brian lifted her hand, careful of the tubes and bandages from the IV, and slipped the diamond-and-aquamarine ring onto her finger. It fit snugly, as though it truly belonged there. It sparkled, even in the fluorescent light of the hospital. Still, it paled in comparison to the spark of life Annie suddenly gave off.

  “Thank you for asking to marry me. Thank you for . . . becoming part of my family. Thank you for all the good times Janey will see. I . . . I never returned the words. You know, the ones you said just before my accident . . .”

  “Sshh—it’s not necessary.”

  “But it is. I love you, too, Brian.”

  Brian’s tears fell as he held the woman who had agreed to be his wife, held her until she fell asleep. He stayed with her all day, holding her hand, feeling her pulse, watching as she drew each breath. She did not appear to be in pain and he supposed that was one saving grace in all this; she didn’t appear to be suffering, at least not in a physical way. Visiting hours slipped away and the nurses encouraged him to go home, to go take care of that precious little girl. But he wanted to stay with Annie. Janey and he, they had a lifetime together. Annie, he sensed, needed him now.

  And so he stayed.

  That night, shortly before the midnight hour, Annie awoke to find Brian still at her side. She smiled and, in a faint voice, thanked him for staying with her.

  Just then the windmill clock Brian had brought from home sounded and the sails spun twelve times.

  “A new day,” Brian said.

  “And see, the windmill still turns,” Annie said, and then she drifted back to sleep. Brian did the same, still holding her hands.

  He wasn’t sure when it happened, but he awoke with a jolt, only to discover it was still dark outside. Morning had not yet come. Still, a stunningly bright light shot across the sky, a shooting star he imagined, and then, quickly, fearfully, he turned to Annie.

  She looked peaceful, at rest.

  And that’s when he knew. Annie was gone.

  “I love you, Annie Sullivan.”

  He stayed with her a while longer, holding her as the tears fell.

  That next day, as a bright sun blazed across the sky and the crisp feel of autumn rode in on a wave of wind, a beaten and defeated Brian Duncan returned from the hospital.

  News of Annie’s tragic death spread through the community, and many of the residents of Linden Corners had gathered at the Sullivan farmhouse. They had come with food in their hands and love in their hearts, but maybe more importantly, they had come to work. The sights and sounds before Brian’s eyes were miracles—the steady sound of hammers pounding nails, saws cutting lumber, men and women hard at work, rebuilding the windmill.

  They had come to honor the woman who had brought them such joy, the woman who had filled their lives with countless lessons in love. She had come to Linden Corners and had come to love the windmill. And they knew that the windmill, which lay in ruins still from the storm, must again live, must turn with the gentle caress of the wind. There was no time like the present. Tomorrow came with no guarantees.

  Brian stood atop the hill, watching as Martha and Gerta and all the other wonderful folks he had met—even Chuck—rallied around him. The plan, as conceived in the attic by a little girl full of hope, as deemed possible at a tiny diner known as the Five-O, as ordained by a young woman who came to a town and instilled within it a sense of friendship and love, the great windmill restoration project had begun, a lasting tribute to the woman who loved the windmill, the woman they had all loved.

  EPILOGUE

  Seasons came and seasons went until countless years had passed and the men who had crafted her, labored in the hot sun to build the magnificent windmill, were like the wind itself, blown into the past, into the memories we coin as history. As for the windmill, it was allowed to fall into disrepair for too long a time, and the once-heralded landmark—a classic token to a lost era—became nothing more than an eyesore to a generation that no longer embraced its ancestry. There was talk, and not just once, of tearing down the old windmill.

  Until she came along, the girl who loved the windmill, and restored it to its former beauty, and grace. Again the wind would pass through its spinning sails, a familiar friend returned to once again define an otherwise lost landscape. She thought it sacrilegious to deprive the windmill of its true purpose, and by instilling within the building a spirit all its own, she breathed vibrant new life into the community around it. She could never know, never imagine, though, that her love for the creaky old structure would inspire a sense of mutual caring and nurturing—even love—among the townsfolk. But it would, even in the face of awful tragedy and sorrow. The windmill would generate an invisible power of healing and would bring together two most unlikely souls.

  Just as the mother had revered the windmill, so, too, did the daughter.

  “Brian, come on, bring the rakes. We’ve got work to do!”

  Janey stood at the top of the hill behind the farmhouse, dressed in blue jeans and a purple turtleneck, her windbreaker wrapped around her waist. Her hands were positioned on her hips and exasperation was written on her face. That and the hint of a smile.

  “Yes, ma’am—here I come.”

  I emerged from the barn, huge wooden rakes in each hand. For a second I held a pose, looking like the male half of a contemporary version of American Gothic, but now I was a single parent as opposed to part of an elderly couple. Janey came running up to me and grabbed one of the rakes.

  “Let’s go,” she said, and began to dash down the hill and across the leaf-strewn lawn.

  A month had passed, summer departing and autumn officially rushing in with a breath of cold air blowing down from the north. Everywhere in the Hudson River Valley were signs of the coming winter: Trees were ablaze with orange and yellow and brown leaves; the wind cradled the delicate branches, and the dying leaves fluttered to the ground.

  Today, a crisp October day, was the annual leaf raking. It was also Janey’s eighth birthday, and we’d planned a quiet celebration. The wounds from Annie’s death were still fresh for all of us, especially Janey. Many a night had passed when Janey’s sleep was peppered with tears, and I would sit by her side until she’d fall asleep. Sometimes I sat by her the whole night long, there if she needed me. But together, we were persevering.

  Today, I hoped we could find some joy. We needed some.

  From the lawn, I saw a familiar car drive up, saw Gerta Connors step out, a wicker picnic basket on her arm and a smile brightening her face. She, too, was ready to build new memories, eager to share in the annual tradition of the raking of the leaves.

  “Gerta, thank you for being here, for sharing this day with us,” I said, then pecked her cheek. “Here, give me that. Let me carry it.”

  “Nonsense,” Gerta said. “I can handle it just fine. You and Janey get cleaned up. I’ll set up—by the windmill, right?”

  “Absolutely. We’ll join you in a few moments.”


  I called a halt to the raking. Huge piles of leaves were gathered in various locations on the giant lawn, and Janey was already busy jumping off a small ladder and landing in the soft mounds of leaves, all the time laughing, laughing, laughing. Her joy was infectious. The wind picked it up and whirled around me and Gerta until we were all feeling that anything, even happiness, was possible.

  Gerta spread a thick flannel blanket on the cool ground, and I secured its corners with heavy stones. Placing the basket on the checkered blanket, Gerta then settled down, tucking her legs beneath her. She urged little Janey to her side. I joined them, and together we made an unlikely threesome, one that had known too much genuine sorrow this past year. But we were a determined group, determined to head toward the future, fueled by memories of happier times, filled with hope for tomorrow.

  And so our feast began, and we dined on sandwiches and soda and, yes, Gerta’s strawberry pie for the adults, chocolate cupcakes dotted with sprinkles for Janey. I took a moment to light a single candle atop one of the cupcakes, which burned brightly until Janey blew it out. Then she ate the cake with relish.

  A strong breeze suddenly blew across the land, ruffling Janey’s hair, tickling her nose. She let out an exclamation of surprise and then turned to stare up at the windmill. Its sails turned, then turned more, an endless revolution that drew her up from the blanket and into a twirl all her own, her face wide and bright and electric.

  “That was Momma,” she said, dancing. “Momma came to wish me a happy birthday. And now it is, it truly is!”

  I went to her, hugged her, wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. This girl, how she inspired me with her bravery and hope. She missed her mother; she always would. But she would be fine—because Annie lived inside Janey, in the memories she had created with her, and in the memories Janey and I would share.

  Ultimately, Annie lived each day through the sheer power of the newly restored windmill, and no one could ever silence her spirit or silence the great and giant windmill that once again spun its magic—today, tomorrow, and forever.