Spinning Forward. Terri DuLong

my legs to the side of the bed. “Time for you to go out and for me to get some coffee.”

      The bedside clock read 6:15. At home I never woke before 9:00 and was amazed that in the week I’d been staying at Alison’s B&B, I didn’t sleep beyond 6:30. Slipping into sweat pants and a T-shirt, I grabbed my pack of cigarettes and with Lilly close at my heels we descended the stairs to the porch.

      Opening the door to the small L-shaped dining room, I saw a middle-aged couple quietly conversing over coffee and made my way to the kitchen.

      “Mornin’,” Twila Faye said as she removed freshly baked blueberry muffins from the oven.

      Twila Faye was Alison’s right hand running the B&B and I liked her. She’d raised her only son alone after her philandering husband had left town twenty years before with a tourist visiting from Macon, Georgia. Raised in the Boston area, I didn’t know much about Southern women, but I knew Twila Faye represented what they called true grit.

      Pouring myself a cup of dark, strong coffee, I asked if Alison was around.

      “Lord, child, she’s already out for her walk with Winston.”

      I should have known. I felt slothful when I had discovered that Ali woke seven days a week at 5:00 A.M. She never varied from her routine. Up at five, she prepared muffins, brewed the coffee, squeezed oranges for fresh juice, and by 6:00, her guests had breakfast waiting for them. Then she rounded up her Scottish terrier for a walk downtown to the beach.

      I looked at the clock over the table and saw it would be another twenty minutes before she returned.

      “I’m going to sit in the garden with my coffee,” I told Twila Faye.

      “Take one of these muffins with you.”

      Patting my tummy, I shook my head. “I’m trying to lose the twenty pounds I packed on this past year. I’ll have some cereal later.”

      Settling myself on the swing in the far corner of the garden, I lit up a cigarette. Blowing out the smoke, it crossed my mind once again that perhaps smoking was another bad habit I should consider discarding.

      I watched Lilly sniffing around the artfully arranged flower beds. Bright, vivid azalea bushes in shades of red. Yellow hibiscus gave forth cheer even on a dreary day. And dominating all of it was the huge, four-hundred-year-old cypress tree. I looked up at the leaves creating shade over the garden and wondered about something being on this earth that length of time. Having withstood tropical storms and hurricanes, drought and floods, it stood proud and secure. Right now secure was the last thing I was feeling. I had an overpowering urge to climb the tree. All the way to the top. And maybe absorb some of the positive energy that it seemed to contain. But with arthritis recently affecting my knees, I decided to stay put on the swing.

      Physically, I was in pretty good shape for my age. If we discount the extra twenty pounds and smoking, that is. But emotionally, my life was a train wreck.

      “Good morning,” Ali called, walking through the gate along the brick walkway. “Let me put these shells inside and I’ll join you with coffee.”

      I nodded and smiled. Ali always had a way of cheering me up. Ever since our college days as roommates, she’d always been there for me as a good friend. A no-nonsense-type person, she stepped in when I called her about my eviction. She demanded I drive down with Lilly, a few belongings, and stay with her at the B&B. She apologized that the second-floor apartment in the Tree House was rented till January, but I could stay in one of the rooms in the main part of the house. The Tree House was detached and located on the side of the garden. Ali had her apartment on the first floor and sometimes rented the one above. Feeling like a homeless person—actually, I was—I was grateful to have any space where Lilly and I could stay. But I won’t lie…going from a 4,500-square-foot luxury home to a 12 x 12 bedroom with adjoining bath was like giving up a BMW 700 for a military jeep.

      “I see you still haven’t given up those disgusting things,” Ali said, settling in the lounge beside me.

      I snubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray and remained silent. I could have said plenty. Like she was the one that turned me on to cigarettes in the first place, during our freshman year in college. Everyone smoked back then, until it became a health issue long after our college days. I also could have said, unlike her, I hadn’t dabbled in smoking pot. But I let it slide and took a sip of my coffee. The only rule that Ali had imposed when I moved in was no smoking inside the B&B.

      Ali flung the long salt-and-pepper braid hanging over her shoulder to her back. She hadn’t changed much since our college graduation. Tall and still very slim. Only faint lines beside her eyes attested to the passing years. She was wearing shorts that showed off her long legs, and a crisp white blouse. Her bronze tan reminded me of the days we used to spend (without sunscreen) on the beaches of Cape Cod.

      “So what are your plans today?” she asked.

      Plans? I was beginning to feel like an inert creature since arriving in Cedar Key. I had ventured downtown a couple of times. Taken a few walks with Lilly. Read a couple books. But other than that, I felt lost. It had even crossed my mind a few times that maybe I should return to the Boston area. Which always led me to question, to what? My life, as I knew it, had been snatched away from me.

      As if reading my mind, Ali said, “Look, Syd, I know you’ve been through a hell of a lot these past couple months. Losing Stephen and then the eviction, but you’ve got to pull yourself together and decide what you’ll be doing for the rest of your life. You can’t just turn off.”

      Anger simmered inside of me. “What the hell would you suggest I do? I have no job. I haven’t worked as a nurse in twenty-six years. I’m not sure I’d even remember which end of a syringe to use. I have no training in anything else. My bank account is on low. I have no clue what I’m going to do.” I swiped at the tears now falling down my cheeks.

      Ali reached over and patted my hand. “I don’t mean to be hard on you, but it’s very easy for a woman in your situation to regress. You’re in a funk and you need to do something to get yourself moving forward. What happened to that girl I knew in college? The take-charge, independent woman, who knew where she was going and how she was going to get there?”

      “She married Stephen,” I said and realized that was true. “He wasn’t supposed to die at fifty-five. And he sure as hell wasn’t supposed to leave me financially insecure. It’s damn difficult not to be angry with the rotten hand life suddenly dealt me.”

      As soon as I said the words, I felt embarrassed. Alison had gone through similar circumstances twenty years before. Gary had died suddenly after a three-month battle with cancer. Leaving her alone, with no children and no future. Within a year of his death, she had shocked me with the news that she was uprooting. Relocating to an island off the west coast of Florida where she had vacationed as a child. She explained the place was calling to her and she felt certain she could heal there. She had been right. Purchasing the B&B had turned her into a savvy businesswoman, and given her an increased confidence. Something I definitely lacked.

      “That’s total bullshit and you know it. Life isn’t fair, so you move along and make the best of it.”

      I sighed and reached to light up another cigarette. “Sometimes all of this feels like a dream. In the blink of an eye my entire life has changed. Stephen was well regarded in our community and at Mass General. We had a wide circle of friends and entertained lavishly. Sure, he had been preoccupied recently, but I thought it was his work. Certainly not illness. When the autopsy revealed a massive coronary had caused the accident, I thought it had been a mistake. Just like I thought the eviction was a mistake. Imagine—he was a compulsive gambler all those years and I didn’t realize it.”

      “You allowed Stephen to run the household financially. He paid the bills, he balanced the checkbook. You’re being a little hard on yourself, Syd. I’m not saying it was right, but since you had no idea where money was going, how could you know he’d taken out a second and third mortgage on your house?”

      I nodded and felt ashamed. But I