Passeggiata (complete 2016)

Margherita sat next to Tom, while Paulo and Toni lounged across the table; the two 'boys' were speaking with Trudi Blixen in hushed, conspiratorial whispers. Paul looked at Trudi and gasped: was she a younger version of the woman on the bus? He fought to contain the implications of her presence here, yet he was sure the woman wasn't all that she seemed to be.

Malcolm and Mary Ann drifted in -- as was their custom -- almost ten minutes late; Mary Ann had Elsie in tow on a soft leather leash and she led the pup over to Tom's chair and looped tether to frame. Malcolm sat next to Margherita and Mary Ann took the last chair, next to Trudi; Vico sat next to Maria Theresa, where he was most comfortable. Wine came, then a Christmas soup of lobster and scented creams.

"Tom, you will be delighted to know, there is not one octopus hidden anywhere in this soup," Vico smiled as he looked across time and space at the emaciated physician, though he smiled to hide the sorrow he felt when he beheld this friend now so reduced. "But alas, I give you fair warning, the salad may be less tame."

"Octopus?" Paul said, making a face. "Really?"

"Not you, too?" Malcolm chimed in. "I hope I'm not the only sod around here who likes things with tentacles." He looked at Paul and Tom; they both shook their heads and frowned -- and he sighed when he looked at them. Their resemblance to one another was complete now; what age had taken from one, illness had from the other. "Oh well, like father, like son."

Maria Theresa looked at her two boys; Paulo seemed blissfully unaware of the implications beating the air, yet Toni drifted along his razor's edge -- waiting to bleed, needing to bleed, perhaps even wanting to. She wondered how long he would last, and what he would do with the truth.

"So old friend," Maria said, "what else have you made for us tonight?"

Vico looked at Maria, took her hand and kissed it. "Do you remember the bisque you once taught me? The lobster, with saffron and basil -- just a trace of sherry? I have not made it in years, and yet I thought tonight it time. Then, salad, and a lamb, because I remember this is your favorite."

Maria squeezed his hand and smiled. Everyone leaned in and sampled the bisque.

"Wow! That's fine soup, Vico," Paul said. "Damn fine."

Tom smiled and looked at his father -- so intent was the old man on ignoring Maria, he was becoming almost comical -- and then he looked to Maria. It was so difficult to have held a persons beating heart in his hands -- and then to see them again in another context. "Ma'am, as your cardiologist, I can't recommend this stuff, so why not just hand it over to me. I'll be happy to finish it for you!"

"Perhaps tonight you will indulge me, Thomas."

Tom smiled, and he felt happy to have helped in her time of need, but Toni froze when he heard Tom's full name, and the razor slipped through the air -- again. Vico watched Tomasino carefully, ready to move, but the boy remained tentative, drawn-up on the balancing act that held them all to this night.

They ate in silence -- each lost in thought. Vico was comfortable as the Ringmaster in this, Paul Goodwin's circus -- or was it Tom's? -- yet above all else he wanted this last evening to go smoothly, gently.

But Elsie could take it no longer; she sat up and looked wistfully at Tom -- until he felt her eyes seeking his. He looked at her and smiled back, took his spoon and found a piece of lobster and gave it to her; Vico looked discreetly pained. Elsie sighed in frustration, yet resumed her place curled up on Tom's feet. All was as it should be, the pup thought. Almost. She looked to the window, and to the water beyond.

Were they coming?

Would they come?

"Mama?"

Vico looked at Toni and bit his lip.

"Yes, Toni?" She looked across the table at her youngest son and smiled inside. "What is troubling you?"

"Is Paul Goodwin my father? Is Tom my brother?"

Silence enveloped the table, even the candles in their glasses seemed to hesitate in breathlessness.

"Yes. Of course."

"What!?" Paul and Paulo cried in one gasped breath. Paulo pushed back from the table, seemed to hover over plains of indecision like a vast, gathering storm, then he reached out and steadied himself againt the table.

"Are you telling me," Paul Goodwin said while he looked at Toni, "that boy is my son?"

"Oh yes, Paul," Maria Theresa replied casually. "They are both your sons."

The words slammed into Paulo and he reeled under the blow; his breathing became thin and raspy-quick, he looked up at those around the table and saw they were floating incorporeally at the end of a long, dark tunnel. The man in the wheelchair -- what was his name? -- was looking at him closely, studying him. Why?

Paulo turned and looked at his brother; the boy's head had fallen and his body shook as gales of grief-borne tears ravaged his soul. Doubt swirled through the air as if this gathering had become a séance, and Paulo was struck with the feeling that this was only right -- as all the dreams and memories of his childhood had just been murdered. He stood and walked from the table and out into the night -- to commune with his dead.

Vico followed him.

Toni turned and saw his brother leaving, then looked at Paul and Tom. "I knew it was you. I knew it."

Tom Goodwin pushed his wheelchair back from the table and patted his leg; Elsie jumped up on his legs and curled up protectively; she looked around the table as if assessing the threat to her charge.

"Toni?" Margherita said quietly, "Why do you say that? What made you think that?"

He looked at his mother, at the pure love in her eyes, then at his sister. "Because he knew, Margherita. Dino knew, and he hated us. He hated us, me and Paulo, and he hated Mama. And every time I looked at him I knew he was of no relation to me. I could feel it in my bones, in my heart. All my life I have wanted to know. Tonight I know, and now I am sad."

"Sad?" Tom Goodwin said.

"Yes, Tom. I am sad. I am sad because I do not know you better now, tonight, and because I never had the chance to. Because I did not know my father, I did not know his love. I am sad because all that time has passed us by, it was wasted, and we can never get it back."

While the boys words swirled around the room Maria Theresa reached under the table and took Paul's hand in her own; in that moment she felt him crossing through time for her, she felt the strength of his soul gathering in the night. She saw his back straighten, his brow furrow, his lips grow firm with resolve. He squeezed her hand once more, then stood.

"Come on, Toni; let's go find Paulo." He walked around the table and stood beside his youngest son and waited; the boy stood and looked into the eyes of this man who might have been his father, who was his father, and he looked with uncertainty into the man's eyes, then the two of them walked from the ristorante.

Margherita turned to look at her mother. Tom looked at her with concern.

"How did this happen, Mama? What have you done?"

"I suspect these things happened for the simplest of reasons," Trudi Blixen said. "I suspect your mother was in love."

"But she was married!" Margherita cried.

Trudi shrugged. "Marriage often has little to do with love, child. Love comes and the heart follows. True love never fades, and is not bound by time. Surely you know this much of life." She looked at the girl with ancient wisdom smoldering in her eyes.

"I only know my father died a broken man!" Margherita spoke quietly now. She saw something in the woman's eyes that gave her pause, and she backed away from the abyss.

Maria Theresa looked at her daughter, nothing left but simple honestly on her face. "Your father was a broken man long before we met, Margherita, long before he became your father. After Paul left, I chose to isolate myself from the world; then, when I found this had taken me too far from life, I wanted to fix the world. Of course I could not, but then I met your father, soon after he quit and ran from law school, and then I wanted to fix that one, broken man, but I could not do even that. When someone is broken -- as that man was broken -- when choice has removed happiness from life, people must find it within themselves to make right what is wrong. This your father could never do because. I suspect he chose never to live his life on his own terms, and I think his life was always defined by others -- and he could not see his way clear of the scorn that followed his weakness. He turned inward, turned in on himself and his choices ate away at his soul until only the choice remained. You of all people should know this, Margherita. In the end, he could not love -- he could not love even you."

Mother and daughter looked at one another through a dead man's lingering, gloaming silence; each was afraid to walk in the shadow of that darkness -- yet they had almost all their lives, and both remained wary of the stain his passing had left on their soul. They could choose now to continue on his path, they could set out to destroy one another, or they could resolve to choose a different path. That much was in the air around them, and...

Elsie ignored this exchange. She was focused on Tom. She felt his breathing grow shallow, his skin pale and cool, and she watched his eyes carefully now. They seemed unfocused, diffuse, full of drifting mists.

She knew his passage was coming -- she had seen it so many times before -- but there was so much to do now. She sat up and licked Tom's face.

"Tom?" Margherita said when she saw the pup. "Tom?"

He lifted his eyes and looked at Elsie, then turned toward the voice. "Hm-m..."

"Tom, are you alright?"

"Yep. I don't think I should have any more wine, though. I feel -- tired."

"Have some water, Tom." Margherita looked at him closely; his eyes were red and perspiration ran down his face.

"Where's Dad? Has he come back yet?"

Margherita put her hand on his forehead -- he was burning with fever again -- just as Paul and Vico came in the front door.

Paul saw what was happening and came over to the wheelchair, knelt beside his son.

"Tommy?"

"Dad. Need to go to the rocks now. Got to get to the water." Trudi looked at him closely, her eyes full of hope...and sadness.

"What? Why?"

"Have to get in the water. Now."

Margherita stood and got behind the chair; she began to move it but Paul stopped her.

"What are you doing?" he said.

"He...we must take him!"

"Paul, do not interfere," Blixen said softly, and Goodwin turned to her.

"Are you out of your cotton-picking mind? It's thirty degrees out there. There's gonna be ice on the rocks before long, and the water out there can't be much warmer."

"Dad. Let's go."

The father looked at the son, then at the Danish woman. There was purpose between them -- unknown -- unknowable -- purpose gathering in the air -- waiting for release.

Margherita began pushing the wheelchair and Paul turned to get the door.

Paul led the way into the night, Maria Theresa walking silently at his side on this last Passegiatta; Margherita walked behind Tom, pushing the chair along the bumpy stone quay. Elsie still sat quietly on his lap, yet the Doncasters gave up and retreated to Diogenes. Vico and the two brothers followed, but remained far behind -- catching up even as distant reconciliations pulsed in the night. Vico suddenly seemed particularly disinterested and tired.

If anything, Paul thought, the air had grown more still as the night deepened; even now, as they walked along the water's edge, darkness seemed to have drawn in upon itself -- it was as if the night was collapsing inward, drawn past an unseen event horizon and rushing towards unknowable conclusions. Wispy tendrils of fog slipped across the water, a cold breeze crept through the last dead leaves overhead.

Paul turned to look at his son -- his oldest son, his first son -- and his thoughts seemed to come as slowly as the breeze. His boy was wrapped in a blanket from the boat, his face and hands were now a blinding, stark white stain glowing in the night. These spectral features seemed to waver in the air, as if his son's hold on the present was loosening; soon Paul couldn't even make out Tom's hands crossed on his lap.

Tears? Had tears so blinded him? And why had they taken so long to come?

Paul saw Margherita wipe a tear away, only then could he really feel the tears clouding his own. He moved as if to go back to push the chair...

And Maria Theresa grabbed his arm. "No, Paul. This is to be their journey. It must be..."

He nodded, caught his breath. Maria reached and took his hand, and Paul was both shocked and relieved to feel her skin on his once again. It felt the same now, here, in this darkness, as it had so many years ago. The same electric recognition of skin on skin, the same flooding warmth of contact renewed, the same enduring feeling of wonder, even awe -- that everything was the same, and yet -- nothing was.

What had once been a beginning was, he felt, soon to be an ending. That was, he suddenly understood, why this night felt so implosive. Even the bare trees that lined their way seemed to stand aloof in the darkness -- not as sentinels, but as the last witnesses to a drama that had been playing out in their shadows -- for centuries.

Paul could hear the sea ahead, hear water washing through tidal pools in endless rhythm, and suddenly he wanted to turn and run, turn and run away from all the mistakes he had made in his life, from the pride and selfishness that had kept him from knowing all his sons, yet all his mistakes were here now, beside him in the darkness, and he realized there was nowhere to run but to the truth of whatever resolution the night held. If there was to be redemption, he would have to face the full fury of the choices he'd made, and the destiny he alone had refuted.

+++++

Footsteps on dewy stone. Fog, drifting fog, swirling underfoot. Only a handful of trees ahead, then only a falling off, to the sea; now all that remains are the rocks ahead. And what remains after that? Beyond? What does that word even mean? Only a vast, impassive sea, hiding under veils of momentary silence...

"Oh, God! I don't want to lose you!" The father's cry comes to the night as a whisper, but he is not surprised when he feels it as a prayer. He feels Maria's hand tighten around his own; the smooth, eternal peace of her skin on his. 'Was that my truth all along? Did I choose annihilation over life? Why? Why?'

The road turned away to the right and he looked down that other road into the darker ways of memory. He could still make out German troops standing near the lighthouse, just in shadow, waiting to find them and take them to the Gestapo. He looked out to sea, and could smell cordite and gasoline as he fought to keep Hell's Belles from falling out of the sky . . . and then he felt himself floating free again, drifting down to that storm-tossed sea, waiting for death to reach up and take him.

He stopped by the rocks he remembered so well, their ebon presence defined the way ahead -- as they always had -- but he could not leave the road, not yet. There was too much to say. Too many prayers left unsaid, and so little time...

He heard footsteps drawing near, soft wheels rolling across sand-drifted stone. Breathing, his breath, and Maria's. Paul turned to Maria, saw her looking up into his eyes.

"Are you ready?" she said.

"No. But perhaps I never was."

"The choice was never ours to make, Paul."

He felt the truth of her words and nodded to the darkness -- those same distant trees still his only witness.

The wheelchair stopped on the sand; Paul looked at Margherita, then at Tom. All purpose was unspoken now as Vico and the two brothers walked up. The pain of betrayal was etched in the lines around Paulo's eyes, Toni's face remained a blank mask. Only Vico seemed to fathom all the implications of this gathering, and yet he seemed to hover back from the group just a little too far, as if waiting for something, or someone, to join him.

Silence.

Water growing still beneath a dying breeze. A snowflake, then another fell through the trees...

Vico turned and spoke to someone in the shadows.

Trudi Blixen came forward, carrying a package. She came to Tom and stood beside him.

"I wanted you to have this for Christmas," she spoke softly, knowingly, to him. She handed her gift to Margherita, who took the wrapping off carefully. Vico took out a flashlight as the paper fell away; he directed it's light onto the offering. It was the painting she had made of the harbor, only now a man -- Tom Goodwin -- stood aft onboard Springer, apparently, obviously, talking to a dolphin in the water behind the boat.

It was perfection, and everyone gasped in wonder at the truth inside the image.

"My goodness," Tom whispered coarsely. His hands shook as he leaned forward to take the framed work in hand. He studied the image for a long while; everything was perfect -- no, more than perfect. Everywhere he looked, emotions embedded within color sprang from canvas to mind. No detail was omitted; no detail failed to stir memory. Joy, longing, simple understanding, the power of love and the purity of truth in every stroke of the brush, and all broke across his soul in a wave.

"My God, what beauty you've created," he said; then Tom turned to his father. "Dad? Hang this on the bulkhead, will you; by Sarah's painting. It will go perfectly there."

"Alright, son."

"Trudi," he said as he turned to look at the woman, "I don't have the words to thank you for this, but you captured something precious. Wondrous. A wondrous story, forever. Thank you."

"It was a gift to me as well, my love. It was a gift to find you again, to see you once again with the sea . . ."

Paul watched the woman's form ripple in the air; again the woman aged before his eyes -- the woman on the bus! -- and then as suddenly she appeared to shimmer in the air and take the form of a very young girl.

"Who are you?" Paul said as he thought of that moment on the bus. "I know you?" he said softly, quietly, as memory ran back to darkness. How could she be here, now, before his eyes again? What did it mean -- yet why did he already know the answer to that question? He stepped forward, looked into the woman's eyes; Paulo and Toni, who had been standing near her, stepped away as her form shifted once again -- and the air around the group shimmered as deeper recognition danced on the fading breeze.

Tom Goodwin -- whose eyes had been fixed on the painting in his hands, turned to look at the woman: "She is Anticleia, father," Tom said. "She is my grandmother."

"Thomas! Who, what the hell are you talking about?" Paul sighed as memory crashed like storm driven waves against these rocks.

Paul squinted, looked at the woman again.

The old woman shifted again before his eyes, and the air suddenly grew warm and softly close; Paul struggled with feelings of recognition and overwhelming fear. He stepped closer still, reached out to touch the woman. When he touched her arm a torrent of lost understanding filled his mind; Paul recoiled as if physically stunned, he stumbled backwards and fell to the ground as waves of dizzy, breathless understanding hit.

"My...my mother?" Paul Goodwin said as he grasped the truth.

Anticleia's form shifted once again. She knelt beside Tom, her love for the boy now a radiant force that lit the night, the wonder of her being filling his face with joy. She stroked his face with her hand, held time in abeyance with her smile. "Ah, my precious Telemachus. It has been so sweet to see you again."

Paulo and Toni came close; they could not understand a word she said, and when they looked at Margherita, they saw she too looked lost.

"What did they say?" Paulo leaned over and asked his sister.