From Comfortable Distances (44 page)

There was a car behind
her now, waiting for her to move along, and she hit the gas, needing to go
fast, needing to get away, far away, to be out of this place and then she was
on the road, amongst traffic, moving, and she felt herself coming back to Tess,
to the world. All around her there were cars moving fast and traffic lights and
road signs. The silence made her uneasy—in it she heard the hum of the monks.
She rolled down all of the windows, letting air gush in from all sides as she
merged onto the highway, moving into the middle lane and then the left lane, and
now she felt safe, passing things by. She reached for the radio and turned it
on, pressing the stations until an orchestra version of
Climb Every Mountain
came on and suddenly there was nothing else but this music and she was gliding
down the road, coasting on the song’s waves of hopefulness, on all that song
had meant to her over the years and her mind narrowed in on the months leading
up to now, early May, when her mother had still been alive, when all that was
between her and Neal was still light and easy. Before Neal had written the note
to her detailing his past, before she had gone up to Woodstock and her mother
had passed on.

She sang along, her voice unsteady at first and
then growing stronger:

Climb every mountain,
search high and low

Follow every by way,
every path you know

Climb every mountain,
ford
every stream

Follow every rainbow,
till you find your
dream

And then she saw the sign that said New York City
and merged onto the Belt Parkway, making her way back to Brooklyn. She didn’t
know how long the tears continued to fall down her face, how long ago it was
that the music had ended as she continued to sing.

“I waited for you the
other morning. You didn’t show and your car wasn’t in your driveway,” Lyla
said.

“I had an obligation,”
Tess said.

They walked along beside
one another in silence for a few moments, Lyla leading the way down Ohio walk.
Tess thought back to the morning, month’s back, that Neal had led her down this
same path. The trees had been in full bloom then.

“Do you believe in God?”
Lyla asked.

Tess turned to Lyla, but
Lyla’s eyes were on the ground in front of her, no expression on her face.

“Yes, I believe in God,”
Tess said.

“I’ve wondered that. With
you being raised a Buddhist, I assumed you prayed to many Gods. Isn’t that the
way with most Buddhists?” Lyla said.

“I suppose many Buddhists
pray to multiple Gods, but I always believed that there was one higher power.
Something about praying to the statues on my mother’s mantel didn’t really
appeal to me. I like to think of the God I pray to as someone up there,” Tess
said, her chin jutting to the sky.

Lyla was leading them
across a street now, maneuvering them into another walk.

“Do you have a place that
you go to when you want to pray?” Lyla asked.

“If you’re asking me if I
go to a temple, the answer is no.”

“Hmm,” Lyla said.

“If it matters to you at
all, Lyla, I pray in my home, in my office, in my car. I can pray from wherever
I am. I don’t need to go somewhere to pray,” Tess said.

“Neal is trying to
convince himself and the world of as much in that book he’s writing,” said
Lyla.

“Have you read any of it?”
Tess said.

“Heavens no,” Lyla said.

Tess couldn’t place her
tone—if Lyla was mocking Neal’s project or if she was indifferent to it.

“The Lord created
churches and temples for a reason,” Lyla said. “In fact, they’ve been around
for quite some time from what I know.”

Tess wanted to say that
she thought it was man who created churches and temples and man who invited
people to come and worship in them, but she didn’t.

“All through growing up,
my home was the neighborhood’s place of worship,” Tess said. “Everyone—Buddhist
or not—was always coming there to meditate and pray.” As soon as she said it,
she felt silly—it made her home seem freakish.

“I see,” Lyla said.

They walked on in
silence, with Lyla zipping her hooded gray sweatshirt up higher and lodging her
hands in the pocket. She continued to move faster, so that Tess was practically
jogging to keep up with her.

“Sometimes I think about
moving back to Woodstock,” Tess said. She wasn’t sure where she was going with
this. Perhaps she wanted to change Lyla’s impression of her home—make it more
desirable in Lyla’s eyes.

“Really?” Lyla said.

“My mother left me the
house up there—it’s beautiful,” Tess said.

“You’re hardly the
country-living type,” Lyla said.

“People change,” Tess
said.

“Not very much from what
I’ve seen,” Lyla said.

Tess stopped in her
tracks for a moment, but seeing that Lyla was going to leave her behind, she
got moving again. How was it that this woman continuously had a way of making
her come undone and why in the world did she subject herself to it?

“Have you told Neal
you’re thinking about moving back to Woodstock?”

Tess smiled. Ah, there it
was. Lyla was thinking of Lyla. Tess leaving meant Tess and Neal would be over.
Or maybe Lyla was actually worried it meant Neal would go away with Tess.

“It’s just a thought.
There’s nothing to discuss,” Tess said.

“I see,” said Lyla. She
had slowed down considerably. “I think I’ll be heading home now. I’ve had
enough of a walk this morning.”

Tess didn’t say anything;
she kept moving along side of Lyla, taking in the trees that lined the
sidewalk. They were un-leaving more on this block, Indiana Drive, than on other
blocks, and the shrubs were already a deeper green. She supposed that this block
was a bit more shielded from sunlight than the rest. That was something that
she’d keep in mind for future reference, if she were to be in a position to
sell any of the houses on this street. Older folks tended to like living on
less sunny streets as then they wouldn’t have to worry about getting into their
cars in the warmer months and dealing with hot leather seats or the sunlight
penetrating through their living room windows and discoloring their couches.

Tess wondered about the
shrubs surrounding the porches—who had decided that each of the houses on this
block would have them bordering the three to four step porches? She imagined
that whenever the next inhabitants would take over and move in, they would tear
down those porches, create their own design and most likely the folks that
would take over each of the other houses would follow the new design. That was
how it worked—no one wanted to be behind the times when it came to the newest
fad on the block. Tess had seen trends catch on in a matter of weeks, houses
transforming one after the other, until a block, sometimes a whole
neighborhood, became unified anew. The lawns she passed were scattered with
mulberry and orange-colored leaves, some deep russet colored leaves here and
there. Soon it would be October and pumpkins would line the porches of houses
in which children lived. Tess wondered what she’d be for Halloween if she were
to dress up. When she’d been younger, much younger, and had taken Prakash trick
or treating, she had always put on a black dress and a witch’s hat. With her
red curly hair, which had been longer then, curlicues tumbling down her back,
it seemed appropriate for her to be a witch.

“What would you do for a
living if you were to live in this Woodstock house?” Lyla said.

Tess had gotten into her
groove so that she had almost forgotten Lyla was moving alongside her.

“Going to Woodstock is
something that I’m toying with in my mind. An idea, really. But if I went
anywhere, Best Reality would remain open.”

“Is your home still a
Buddhist temple? Do people go there each day?” Lyla said.

“No. It’s closed up now. 
I don’t think that I’d carry on in that tradition, though.”

“No, I can’t see you
doing that,” Lyla said. She was walking in the opposite direction of her home
now. Apparently, she had decided that she wasn’t ready for their conversation
to be over.

“Lyla, I’m not going
anywhere just yet, so if you’re worried about my taking Neal away, you have no
need to worry.”

“Neal wouldn’t go with
you anyway,” Lyla said.

Tess stifled a laugh. Her
instinct was to take the defensive, but she breathed instead. Let the moment
pass.

“Why?” she said. “Why
wouldn’t Neal want to go?”

“His home is at a
monastery in Canada.”

Tess moved alongside of
her, silent. This line of reasoning again. Lyla was moving quicker now.

“Did you ever visit Neal
in the monastery in Canada?” Tess asked.

Lyla crossed 66
^th
street, moving into the walk entrance on the other side of the street, scooting
in front of Tess as she did so. The lane wasn’t wide enough for them to walk
side by side. Tess wondered what would happen if she were to suddenly stop,
leave Lyla to rush away on her own.

“No,” Lyla said.

“Why?” Tess said.

“He told us not to bother
whenever the family days would come up. Said it was too long a trip for us to
travel.”

“Weren’t you curious to
see how he lived?” Tess said.

“He sent us pictures,”
Lyla said. “He told us he was at peace. What more did I need to know?”

“I went to visit a
Benedictine Monastery in New Jersey the other day,” Tess said.

Tess waited for Lyla to
comment, but she kept moving without looking back.

 “I don’t know what I was
expecting. I just wanted to see what it was like.”

“And now do you suppose
yourself an expert on monastic life?” said Lyla.

“I wouldn’t say that,”
Tess said.

Lyla was making her way
down 65
^th
street. Tess imagined that she was leading them back to
her block, back to her house, where she would excuse herself.

“What were your
impressions of the monastery?” Lyla asked.

“Quite frankly, I was a
nervous wreck,” Tess said. “I felt like someone there was going to find out I
wasn’t a Catholic and ask me to leave. And once I got past that, I was
overwhelmed—by their singing, the smells. I tried to envision Neal up there
with the other monks,” Tess said.

“And could you?”

“I don’t know. I suppose.
I practically ran out of the chapel,” Tess said. “I felt stifled. Or something
close to that,” Tess said.

“I’ve been to that
monastery,” Lyla said.

“Why?” Tess said. “When?”

“For the same reason you
went. To see what it was all about. It was years ago. Perhaps close to twenty.
I stayed there for a few days, did a retreat. I wanted to understand what Neal
was doing each day. I didn’t tell my husband that I went. I believe that I told
him I was going to visit a relative. Might have been the only lie I kept throughout
our marriage.”

“Did being there help you?”

“If you’re asking did it
help me to understand Neal’s choice, no. I don’t think so. There was nothing in
the lifestyle that was reminiscent of Neal to me. Sure he was a quiet boy, and
sure he was studious, but I couldn’t see him living by that order, that rigidity.
But it helped me to accept his choice. Seeing the monks go about their daily
lives, their sense of conviction, I came to realize that I had no control over
his calling. That his path in life had nothing to do with my wants or desires
for him. He was following his own path in life. I came to know that at the
monastery,” Lyla said.

“Yet now, you try to
steer him,” Tess said.

“I try to remind him. I
try to keep him grounded,” Lyla said.

They were moments away
from Lyla’s house and sensing their conversation would reach an abrupt end when
they reached their destination, Tess began to move slower, so that Lyla had no
choice to slow down if she didn’t want to end up talking to herself.

“I went back to that monastery
many times. Once or twice a week, for years. They all came to know me well
there. Neal and my husband didn’t know. Being with the brothers, I felt that I
was getting to know Neal better,” Lyla said.

“Do any of them know that
he’s come home from the monastery?” Tess said.

“Oh no. I haven’t been
there or in touch with any of them in years now. I didn’t seem to need to go
any longer. I suppose my questions were answered.”

“Why didn’t Neal go to
that monastery? Canada is so far away,” Tess said.

“He seemed to know that
his place was in Canada. Perhaps it would have been too easy for him to return
home if he were in New Jersey.”

“Didn’t you ever ask him?”
Tess said.

“No,” Lyla said.

Lyla had stopped in front
of her house. Her car was pulled up close to the garage door, as if she had
debated driving through it. She glared at Tess long and hard. Lyla had the
ability to transform into so many different Lyla's in a matter of minutes:
hard, sweet, caring, dismissive.

“I believe that people
tell us what they want us to know—what they need us to know,” Lyla said.

“We can’t read each
other’s minds, Lyla. If we don’t ask, we may never get to know the answers,”
Tess said.

“What are you saying?
That I don’t know my son because I didn’t ask certain questions?”

“I’ve regretted keeping
quiet, assuming. When my mother passed, so did my chance to ask the questions I
had,” Tess said.

“I’ll be going now,” Lyla
said.

“Yes,” Tess said. “You’re
home.”

“Have you been asking him
questions?” Lyla said.

“No,” Tess said. “I haven’t.”

Tess held her gaze for a
few moments longer before Lyla broke away and made her way up her driveway to
her porch. Tess didn’t turn to watch her enter her house; she heard the
creaking of the door as it was pulled open and the familiar slam shut.