~~~
Caleb stopped
telling himself the impending gloom he experienced as he rounded the base of
Brady Mountain was just his taking notice of the difference between the fast
pace of his life in St. Louis and the small town leisure here at home. Over the
years he'd even developed a level of comfort with the brooding feeling. There
was no denying that Brady Hill had seen better days.
Today was
different. This visit different. For so many reasons. He’d come to bid farewell
to the woman who’d been his adopted grandmother from the moment he came to
Brady Hill as an orphaned six year old boy.
Knowing she was
gone, and that her smile and comforting presence -- a presence capable of easing
the heaviest of burdens -- wouldn’t greet him once he arrived, only highlighted
the glaring state of his home town.
The subtle
sinking sensation that usually filled his gut, the almost imperceptible ache
from the hollow in his heart, ramped up into full despair as the scene unfolded
before him. Four for sale signs on just the first block. Who were they kidding?
There’d be no buyers. No one was moving to Brady Hill.
His dad slowed
to obey the speed even though there were no other cars on the road. The drive through
town became like a slow motion tour, Caleb’s mind remembering what was and
trying to reconcile it with what he now saw.
The theater,
closed... Dixie’s Café, closed... The building that housed the local paper was all
boarded up. The shoe shine chairs in front of the barber shop sat empty and no
ladies anxiously lingered in front of the bakery for first dibs on Matilda's sour
dough straight from the oven. Even essentials like the clinic and pharmacy were
shut down.
Caleb scanned
the empty sidewalks through the passenger side window of his father's
Oldsmobile. Awnings cast shadows, providing shade from the sun, but only birds
took refuge there.
In his mind he
heard the echo of once-upon-a-time voices and laughter -- residents stopping to
greet and chat, taking time to enjoy one another’s company. Brady Hill’s walkways
had knitted the town together house by house, business by business. A person
could always count on bumping into a familiar face when out for a stroll.
He'd loved this
as a boy, because it usually ended with an invitation to join someone for a
piece of pie or cup of hot cocoa, depending upon the weather. He always felt
safe, accepted. Able to simply be himself. The fact that he'd come here
orphaned and maimed, having lost his arm, hadn't mattered. To the people of Brady
Hill, he was just Caleb.
He sighed and exchanged
glances with his father, and then turned his attention to the road ahead.
"The quiet
is hardest to get used to," his dad said and left it at that.
Caleb only
nodded.
Indeed. Of all the
signs of decay around him, the silence pressed upon Caleb the hardest. Brady
Hill was founded as a mining town. Throughout her life the zinc mine had been
her heartbeat -- the single force that gave her existence meaning. The roar and
idle of truck engines making their haul through town was a constant and
soothing strum.
Caleb strained
his ears if only to hear a distant echo, but all was quiet. The mine was
closed, the heartbeat stilled.
This town who
had raised him, this town he loved; she was dying.
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