If you hear closely enough, there is a melody that the summer breeze carries. The gentle sway of the wheat fields, the sparkling of water in sunlight, but if I must pick a favourite, it is the song of the mockingbird. Especially when my wife sings to them.
I have just closed my eyes to hear that sweet sound when a knock on the front door breaks the spell. I look up, hands rising from the bread dough I am kneading, and start at the clock. It is nearly 2 pm in the afternoon. Who could it be?
Wiping my hands on the blue apron- that my wife insists brings out the blue in my eyes – I walk to the front door and pull it open. On the other side stands a young girl who I can’t recognize. She’s young – perhaps 20. Her face is pale, blonde hair tucked into a braid, much like my wife like to wear, there are strands stuck to her forehead with sweat.
But what strikes me the most are her eyes – they are as blue as mine – and are looking at me in a way that makes me wonder if I have stray flour streaked across my face.
“Hello,” I begin gently. “Can I help you, Miss?”
Her eyes widen by a fraction. “I-” she swallows and looks down at her feet, blinking rapidly as though she is holding back tears. I feel a pang of pity in my chest. She continues. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m a bit lost and my car broke down. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Oh, that’s a piece of bad luck,” I say. Indeed, a few feet behind her is a small red car with a smoking engine. And then I do something which I know my wife will roll her eyes at. “It is quite hot outside. Would you like to come and wait inside till your car is fixed up?”
Her head snaps up. “I’d appreciate that.”
I give her a broad smile and push the door open wider. “Come on in!”
I tell her to make herself right at home and head into the kitchen to deposit my dirty apron and when I come back, I see her eyeing the photograph of me and my wife. “That’s my wife, Asterid,” I say, unable to keep that silly grin off my face.
“She’s beautiful,” the young girl says. Her fingers are curled rightly around the sofa edge as though her hands are itching to touch the picture. It is a rather marvellous photo of Asterid and myself, if I am to be honest. Asterid is not a person who readily smiles at a camera, I must have told her a marvellous joke right before because in this black and white photograph she is making that smile – the one where she knows she shouldn’t smile, but she can’t help herself. And I as always am smiling at her smile. It was taken a few days before our wedding.
“She’s even more beautiful in person,” I tell her. “She has just gone out for grocery shopping, so she should be back soon.” I turn to look at the clock. It’s nearly 2 pm – what time had Asterid left?
The young girl’s next question breaks my train of thought.
“How did the two of you meet?” She gives a small, embarrassed smile. “Sorry for asking so many questions, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people more in love.”
I wave off her apology. “Pssh. I’d be glad to tell you all about her. I’ve been told I can’t stop talking about her enough. But to your answer your question – well,” I pause, letting the memories rush to me. The rain. The gunfire. The soulfulness of Asterid’s voice. “We had always known each other as kids. But it really began when I heard her sing for the first time – her voice was so beautiful that even the mockingbirds wanted to steal her voice. I knew I was a goner. We were 6 years old then. Sadly, I never found the courage to speak to her until we will 18 and I was being sent off to war. Asterid volunteered there as a nurse and when I was gravely injured, she brought me back to life when everybody else had already given up.”
The girl puts her palm against her chest.
I shrug. “In that time, it seems she found something worthwhile in me. Maybe it was my sense of humour or perhaps it was the bread I bribed her with. She ended up falling for a schmuck like me.”
“I don’t think you’re a schmuck,” the young girl tells me. “I think you are a very kind man.”
I tip an imaginary hat at her and we both chuckle. “Enough about me, here I am droning on and on. And oh – I haven’t even asked you your name!”
The young girl grins. “Oh, it’s a unique one. Would you like to guess?” I throw out some guesses, but none of them land. Finally, she says, “My name is Toast.”
“Toast?!” I guffaw. “Your parents named you Toast?”
“My grandpa did, actually,” she returns easily. “I didn’t meet him, but apparently everyone says I look a lot like him. And he loved bread…”
“It sounds like your Grandpa and I would get along,” I say, still chuckling. Naming his Grand-daughter ‘Toast’ what an insanely hilarious thing to do.
“I think so too,” she says softly. Then she blinks rapidly and continues, “Well, my grandma fought him so long to choose a more sensible name like Rue or Iris, but eventually he charmed her into naming me Toast.”
“You must tell your grandpa to share his trick of the trade,” I say. Toast smiles a little wistfully at that. I feel my stomach drop. “Is he…”
“He’s not dead,” Toast says immediately, like the thought horrifies her. “He’s just a … well, he’s a little lost right now. I started out on this journey to find him actually.”
“He ran away?” I ask with an eyebrow raised.
Toast clasps her hands together. “It’s a bit more complicated than that. When my grandpa was young, he got real sick. Like practically dead sick. My grandma made some shady deals for his medicines, because she didn’t want to lose him that early. But the medicine is taking toll on both of them now. Once grandpa found out that the medicine was hurting Grandma too, he flipped out and tried to run away so she’d stay alive in his place. I’ve been trying to find him ever since.”
“Your grandpa sounds like a determined man,” I tell her, feeling sorry for the entire situation. I can’t imagine if Asterid and I were in their shoes – living at the cost of Asterid’s life would kill me.
Toast gives a watery chuckle. “And my grandma’s a pretty determined woman too. So, she’s not ready to let him go and he’s not ready to let her die for him.”
I smile sympathetically at her. “It’s a tough situation. Especially when love is so strong.”
“I never thought love could hurt so much,” Toast whispers, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I don’t even know what I would say to my grandpa once I find him. I can’t stand the thought of them being apart, but I can’t even think of them dying.”
I think over it. “All you can do it reunite them, my dear. Then it is their story to write.”
Toast is silent for a moment. “Do you think they are ready for it? To see each other, perhaps for the final time?”
“No one ever is,” I say. “But that doesn’t stop time from marching on. Our mortality is what makes it so special – that each moment is precious and worth treasuring. Even if I died today, I would die happy in the memory of loving and being loved by Asterid. That is all we can hope for.”
Toast is staring at me with those big blue eyes, tears tumbling down her cheeks. Who would have thought opening the door to a stranger would lead to this?
“I know it is no consolation, but I can show you my favourite place in the house,” I say. “I always go there when I am feeling blue. Perhaps it might help you feel better.”
Toast opens her mouth and then closes it again. Then in a very soft voice says, “Sure, let’s go there.”
I stand up and lead her past the kitchen and right into the backyard where there are endless woods. As I stand there, I wish that Asterid was by my side. In her quiet, no-nonsense way she would make Toast feel better. If she were here, I would ask her to sing – her special song. The one she wrote for me, the one the mockingbirds sing back to her.
It is ours alone, but there is something about Toast that makes me want to share the song with her. But before I can speak anything, Toasts speaks up.
“My grandma,” she begins, “wrote a song about my grandpa once. Would it be alright if I sing it here?”
I blink, taken aback. “Oh, sure dear.”
It is silent for moment and then Toast begins. It is all that I can do to not lose my footing. It’s Asterid’s song. It’s our song. And this girl – this girl who came out of nowhere – is singing our song.
My heart races in my chest and the dots connect in my mind like the hail crashes into barren land. Her grandma who tried to save her grandpa. Her grandpa who likes bread like me. Her grandpa who is missing.
When she finishes, the world is silent. My blood roars in my ears.
“Toast,” I begin. “What did you say your Grandpa’s name was again?”
She turns to me. Her blue eyes the mirror of mine. “Rylan Hawthorne.”
Rylan Hawthrone.
That’s my name.
As she says it, the mockingbirds begin to sing Asterid’s song.
And I – I stare and stare and stare at my grand-daughter. My grand-daughter who I named Toast. And she stares back at me with tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she begins apologizing, overcome with tears. The words keep tumbling out of her mouth until I wrap her in my arms. She clutches me like I’m her lifeline, her entire body racking with sobs.
I pat her head in what I hope is comforting and as I do I feel eyes on me. I turn my head to the side and there I see her. My wife, the love of my life, Asterid.
She stands there, her black hair tied in a braid identical to Toast’s, her eyes grey and focused on me with a grim determination. She’s not ready to let me go. And as I look into her eyes, the memories come rushing back to me like a dam has been broken.
I go back to when I was 18, delirious with pain and on the verge of death. I remember Asterid’s grim face as she held my face in her palms. “You can’t leave me like this,” she had said. “Stay with me, Ry.”
“Always,” I had blabbered out.
I had blabbered out something incoherent to calm her down. I had wanted her to move on, to let me go instead of carrying me around like a dead-weight. The doctors gave up on me, but Asterid didn’t.
In the clarity that Toast has provided me, I now see Asterid making a deal with Death, half of her life in exchange for mine.
No, I wanted to say to her. Don’t give up your life for me.
But it is too late, I know her determination-filled look when I see it.
Asterid, in the real world, summons me like one does a ghost, where I act like a human and live like a human. In the half that I am real, is the one where I got better and came back home to her, the one where we got married and had two beautiful kids – Willow and Jackson. I see us growing older and happier. I see me holding a little girl in my hand and naming her ‘Toast.” No matter what happens, I can never stay for more than a couple hours. Asterid must always send me back.
And when the time comes, she sends me here at this house. I am stuck here, baking bread, listening to the mockingbirds and waiting for Asterid to come back. Always operating under the guise that she has gone to get groceries.
For the entirety of her life, Asterid has fought death to have me as a ghost. And to my utter horror, Asterid is now on her own deathbed because she refused to let go of me. I see her real body in the hospital – where she is fragile and has tubes poking into her every crevice.
But here we are, brought together to face reality by our grand-daughter. I can tell the next decision that we must make will be harder than the war I fought, but one thing I know for certain – I love Asterid Hawthorne. And if I was able to convince her to name our grand-daughter Toast, I might be able to convince her to let me go.
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