“Do you ever make it there?” Eva asked. “In your dream?”
“No.” I shook my head, and the old disappointment that often filled me when I woke from that dream returned. “I always wake up before I arrive. All I can do is see it there.” I paused. “I told Jack this dream too.”
“Lewis? You told him that? I didn’t realize you two were so close.”
I laughed. “We haven’t even met, but yes. The amazing thing is that he has imagined the same place. He wrote of it in his Pilgrim’s Regress, this Fairyland. Well, he calls it ‘the Island,’ but it’s the description, the idea of a place where longing is fulfilled.”
“We all want to believe something perfect lies ahead. That’s heaven, Joy.”
“I know. But here’s the difference—I dreamt this when I didn’t believe in anything greater than what our eyes can see. It was Jack’s book that revealed to me what my dream truly meant.”
“Does his pilgrim ever reach the island?” she asked as if this were the most important thing to know, and maybe it was.
“Yes, he does.”
She exhaled as if in relief.
Jack:
You must become frustrated that I can’t answer all your questions, Joy. Your mind is as quick and lithe as any I’ve known. But sometimes I have no answer but his, which is “Just follow me.” Your marriage and your husband’s infidelity sound like horrors, but you also sound resolute to love.
Joy:
Yes, with the questions that won’t let me rest, it’s best to remember your answer. Again and again I will turn to that: “Follow me.”
Eva stopped as we crested the hill, spying Bill and Chad on a blanket with a picnic basket between them. All six children were at the lake’s edge, splashing and calling one to the other. Multihued wild flowers, thimbleweed and liverwort, aster and doll’s-eyes, bloomed in open-faced eagerness that made them seem desperate for attention.
“Look at this world,” I said. “It’s such a wonder, profoundly beautiful. I want to live in it that way—not as if life is one big chore.” I leaned over and picked a flower, held it to the sun.
“That’s a lovely thought. You, my friend, you are the most fascinating woman I know. I’m thrilled you’re here.” She hugged me with a tight squeeze before descending the hill to the men.
I stood still for a moment. The lake rippled with our children’s splashing and swimming. Bill and Chad cast a handsome scene, leaning back on the blanket and laughing.
It was two lives I lived: the one right there, the sun extending its warmth toward us, the children calling with happiness, the cry of songbirds in the canopy of oak trees overhead, the splash of lake water. Then there was the second, parallel life: the one where my mind was preoccupied with how to describe this time and feeling to Jack. What would I take of this day to share with him? I was living a life with him in my mind while externally picnicking with my family. It was both disorienting and balancing.
I walked carefully down and reached the blanket where Eva sat, her face lifted to the sun, laughing so freely. I was envious. There she was, happy with her husband and four girls.
Chad, his dark hair plastered against his round and eager face, smiled at me. “Welcome, ladies.” Mosquito bites welled on his freckled arms and he scratched absently.
Eva turned to him, and he leaned down to kiss her lips. “What are you boys doing down here?”
Bill sat up. “Poogle!” he cried in a joyous voice that suggested I had just arrived from far off. He too leaned over, kissed me with the sweet taste of Chianti on his lips, and palmed my cheek gently. “Aren’t you glad we came?” He turned back to Chad. “How can we ever thank you?” Exuberant, he was up and off to run into the lake with the children. He swooped Davy over his head and ran into the water with him to squeals of delight.
Jack:
I have read your conversion essay, “Longest Way Round.” I am quite in awe at your ability to explain what is almost impossible to articulate—the power of conversion and the realization that atheism was too simple. It is flaming writing. Not much in our world is as simple as it appears, and if you want to dig deeper, as you do, Joy, you must be prepared for the difficulty in that journey. Most are not. And I am honored that you mentioned my work in your essay. Thank you.
Joy:
In that essay I state that ever since that half minute, I’d been slowly changing into a new person. And for the first time in a long while, I can feel that change again—the transformation toward a new life with my true self.