*****
The tennis shoes stared at Sarah from the floor. They were white with jagged pink stripes along their sides. They sat in front of the bedroom door where they’d been for the last four days. Sarah thought they seemed more ominous and demanding this morning. “Wear us,” they said, “Run with us, run away.” Her imagination seemed increasingly drawn to Stephen King-like personifications of the shoes.
Sarah had placed the running shoes there after her sit-down with Grandpa and her siblings. Grandpa’s assurances had made her feel confident and comforted, secure in her place in the world. She hadn’t felt anything but sadness and fatigue in so long.
Many months ago, the tennis shoes had become a symbol of her old life, the life with gymnastics and cheerleading and Mom. After Grandpa’s talk, Sarah had felt she was ready to go back to that, to exercise, to be happy again and healthy. She wanted to dispel the bloating sorrow that made her weary inside and out. So she placed the shoes where she would have to see them, as a reminder she wanted to take a run down the drive in the morning. Only she hadn’t done that.
For four days, Sarah got up early— before sunrise, woken by the jarring alarm on her cell phone. She stretched and sat up and stared at the shoes. But she did not put them on and she did not run. She couldn’t. Because every time she saw them with their happy pink swooshes, she became afraid. Afraid of her own emotions and how much the shoes represented. Those two simple items transformed into a weight she suddenly wasn’t sure she could bear.
Every morning she would contemplate them despondently, all her good intentions buried under doubt and unhappiness. Eventually, she got up and steadfastly ignored them. She didn’t move them, though, instead Sarah stepped around them to slide out the door.
Not today, she determined, glaring at the insistent faces of leather and string. Today she felt compelled to grab a pair of socks and shove her feet into the shoes. She would run today. It was a need for escape and release that Sarah only partially understood.
Without giving her doubts time to surface, she dressed in baggy shorts and a sport top. She carried the shoes down the stairs and out the front the door, her socked feet not making a sound on the polished wooden floors. In almost trance-like motions, she laced up the shoes and began a slow jog around the circular drive, the gravels crunching softly beneath her feet. Once around the circle, she sped up to a run, already breathing hard. She gritted her teeth with resolve and headed down the lane towards the gate.
Her breath came in puffs. The early June morning was still quite chilly, but the motions of her legs quickly warmed her. Left, right, left, right. Quick, quick, quick. Bend the knees a bit, swing the arms from the shoulders, push forward and forward and faster and faster. She focused on the activity with a near obsessive concentration and picked up her pace.
Sarah’s legs blurred beneath her, her heart pounded in her chest, her blood roared up in her ears. She began to feel sick to her stomach and her muscles ached and burned, but she pressed on and sped up again instead of stopping. Her body, unused to the activity, protested harshly, and after only a mile or so, she involuntarily doubled forward and dry-heaved into the gravel.
Sarah tried desperately to get air into her lungs and calm herself, but she could not assuage a sudden burst of irrational panic. She couldn’t stop— had to get up— had to keep going. If she didn’t she would feel and she didn’t want to feel anything. She just wanted to run.
Sarah tried to push herself up, but her knees collapsed and scraped the rocky ground. Pain. She felt pain, but not from the stones beneath her. This was why she was afraid to run, why the shoes were ignored day after day. Sarah couldn’t stop the hot tears spilling from her eyes, mixing with sweat, stinging and distorting her vision.
Hidden from the house, surrounded by the trees, Sarah hugged herself tightly. She dropped her head to the sharp rocks beneath her and let go. She released her anger, her sadness, her broken heart spilling out of her, flooding the gravels with unseen blood amid salty tears.
Running was something from the old life. The life of happiness and laughter. The life where her mother woke her early, every day except Sunday, and they shared a cup of coffee in the kitchen. Mornings were quiet, no one else was awake. Mom talked and told stories. She listened to Sarah’s exploits with friends and school and boys, without judgment. She offered advice sometimes, but more often she gave simple encouragement. Then when the coffee mug was empty and the talk done, she and Sarah grabbed their running shoes and headed out the door.
Sometimes they ran three miles, sometimes as many as ten, it didn’t matter. They crisscrossed the neighborhood, speeding past houses, feet hitting the asphalt with muffled slaps. They slowed to a walk when tired and would pick up the thread of conversation that had dropped off when the run began. Annie told Sarah once that she ran to exercise her spirit and not her body. Mom believed in the spirit, in having a strong a soul and a good heart. During those runs she seemed nearly mythological in Sarah’s mind. She was Athena of wisdom and war. She was Mom, comfort and love. And then she died.
Sarah never figured out to handle that. How was she supposed to continue her life without her mother? They were connected; Mom couldn’t have just left her alone. Annie would have at least left some message, some sense that she was still there. If anyone could become a guiding angel or spirit it would be Sarah’s mother.
Sarah held on to that thought for weeks. It made her strong and unflinching as she helped dad arrange the funeral. She gave comfort to her brothers and her father because Mom would have done it. She was gracious and smiled gently at the condolence wishers, even when she wanted to scream at them because they thought a kind “I’m sorry for your loss” would somehow alleviate the pain for her family. Sarah thought “I’m sorry” was the most useless pairing of words in the universe, but she smiled and gifted out hugs of gratitude because it was what her mother would do.
After the funeral— after the helpful neighbors stopped bringing over casseroles— Sarah pulled on her running shoes, still next to Mom’s in the hall closet, and went for a run. She wanted to find some piece of her mother in that run. She knew if she got her feet moving, doing this activity that bound and tied her and her mother together, she would feel her mother’s love again, her soul, her spirit. She knew it would wash over her and everything would be okay. She knew Mom had not truly deserted her; she who believed in spirits and souls would find Sarah and stay with her to guide her through life like mothers were supposed to.
But there had been no presence. Mom was not there. Sarah felt no comfort or joy. A once familiar daily rite was now alien and painful. The pain was fierce and had nothing to do with tired muscles. Sarah stopped abruptly after three miles. She breathed heavily into the hot, humid morning and stood alone on the street. She was alone, completely alone. Mom was wrong. There were no spirits, no angels. There was only pain, sadness, and anger. It flooded up through Sarah’s being and settled into her bones like stone, making her heavy and silent.
Sarah did not run again. The shoes were discarded and packed away. They hadn’t seen light until Sarah automatically slipped them into her suitcase when she packed for Colorado. She thought tennis shoes would be good to have on a farm, but after setting them in front of the door to her bedroom, she suddenly questioned that instinct. Had some part of her needed to run again? Had some part of her known this would happen? With the shoes staring back at her, she felt accused and afraid, but still bound to them and their purpose as if they were living things deserving of loyalty.
The morning was quiet except for Sarah’s panting. Light began to suffuse the darkness with pearly gray color. Sarah’s breathing had quieted, and her tears subsided. She realized suddenly this was the first time she cried since Annie’s death. She’d held it all inside up until this moment.
Sarah successfully pushed up to all fours and then rose to stand. She felt somewhat weak and her hands shook a little when she scrubbed some of the wetness off her cheeks. She started a
slow walk toward the gate, and then upped it to a jog. Alternating between walking and jogging, Sarah reached the gate and turned back toward the house. By the time she was back in sight of the big hodgepodge mansion, her eyes were dry and she was calm again.