The path of each life is like a rope, a thick braid that fate or luck weaves into the cosmic macrame, curling around someone else’s rope to form a knot, then angling away, eventually bumping into another strand or two or three or six, gliding along next to them for a while, knotting up with some for years. The strands keep moving, but the knots are permanent.

Three of us stopped last week and felt our way back along the ropes to a knot long ago, forty years almost, when ours had coiled around a fourth and music swelled. Our eyes were clear back then, our voices higher, our skins loved the sun, and we didn’t yet know the limits of anything, especially pain. The fourth strand is Craig’s, my brother’s, and its cut end is almost in sight, just ahead.

Four of us - a sister, a brother, his best friend and hers - are as old as we swore decades ago we would never be. Seen from that knot, we are ancient - 57, 58, 61, 63 - but the youngest isn't old enough to be dying.

A sister, a brother, and two best friends. Two musicians, four singers. One acoustic guitar and a handful of song sheets. Four full bellies, one night of one weekend, one last chance.

Craig and Gary were skinny-boy friends, guitar-learning dorks, bike-riders, girl magnets. I was Craig’s big sister who teased and waved them off until they were old enough to be interesting, and then I bought them beer. 

Dawn and Craig were cool kids who worked in a restaurant together - he was a cook, she was a waitress and busboy wrangler. We three and my tiny girl were roommates for a while until Craig took his band on the road and wound up in Denver with Gary again. Dawn and I stayed on the coast, sometimes in trouble, forever.

Marriages and some children came along, widening our roads, then ho-hum and admissions of error and at least one major-injury accident each. A sign was flashing Not Enough Time, but we weren’t looking. Giving up cigarettes, an offramp not soon enough for at least one of us. Now it’s the usual fists shaken at the blameless sky. We met at Craig’s to sing together again, to cook and drink and eat, do what we each know and do best, as gifts for him, for each other, memory presents to put in our boxes with all the others. We went to sing for him, and he gave us his strength.

The cowardly cancer cells that won’t come out and fight (Craig’s description) are working hard and fast, and he was sick and down a lot. But he rallied in the mornings and fixed his famous corn pancakes twice for Gary, who reciprocated by retelling every prank story from their teenage years and singing every ad jingle for cereal or kid food from the ‘sixties. Our boy still loves to eat, so I made scratch dumplings on chicken and vegetables one night and sour cream chicken enchiladas the next. On night two he said, “Candy, this is the best food I’ve ever eaten in my life. Really.” 

Dawn pulled his socks off and gave him the world’s best foot massage with gorgeous oils she’d brought from home and, as usual, spilled inside her purse. Lavender and lemongrass. She’s a beauty, so he got some last eyefuls of her and many words of never-lovers love. When Gary wasn’t making everyone (but especially Craig) laugh, he was crying in the bathroom. We went to get groceries on enchilada day and wove through the aisles like wraiths, riding the cart, sunglasses in place over our red eyes, crying over four star onion rings at Brown Bag Burger, tiny tear tracks on my niece Lindsey’s pure cheeks, all of us blowing into Kleenex and not giving a damn if people were staring. I might have howled once.

We touched each other as we passed in the kitchen, sat close, held hands, danced for a minute here and a minute there. Arms were slugged, backs rubbed. We caught each others’ eyes more times than I can count. Closer, closer. 

I leaned against my strong, sick brother, shared his blanket while we watched a movie, measured his palm and fingers against mine. I felt the deep crater where the surgeon had carved the muscle out of his shoulder. “You have a handle now,” I said, curling my fingers around his collarbone. “Yes,” he said.

On music night, everything came together like pizza dough. Craig’s voice is a whisper and he was flat on the floor with his eyes closed, so he was the audience and Gary the solo guitarist and male lead. Dawn sat close to Gary on the couch; I was on the floor near his knee and the guitar neck. Just the four of us huddled in the dark living room, close enough to touch, listening for the other voices and the harmonies, hearts beating with the rhythm, remembering all those days and all those nights. We skipped the sad ones, though there were unexpected lines in songs we’d thought safe that echoed coldly off the walls.

We sang Kite Woman, a song it’s rumored that Souther wrote about Linda Ronstadt, and more Souther, It’s the Same - “In the crowded part of heaven, there’s room enough for pain” - Jesus in 3/4 Time, Run Like a Thief, a bunch of Eagles tunes and a Tom Waits song that the Eagles made into a hit, Old ’55 - “Well, my time went so quickly, I went lickety-splitly out to my old '55. As I pulled away slowly, feeling so holy, God knows I was feeling alive. And now the sun's coming up, I'm riding with Lady Luck.” Paul Simon, The Beatles, Crosby Stills and Nash, Poco, Jesse Colin Young, The Animals, The Byrds. 

On the only John Denver song, Take Me Home, Country Roads, Gary was previewing the chords and couldn’t remember that odd one in the chorus. From the floor came a scratchy whisper: “F.” 

We sounded good, better than we had in August or any other time I can remember. No one planned it, but several songs mentioned going home. The years were gone, all forty of them and more. We tucked together like children, like puppies in a basket. We will never forget the warmth of each others’ skin. We loved each other as we used to, in our innocence back near the beginnings of our ropes, and as we always will. In the most terrible way, we’re so lucky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This piece was originally published on my website and was there entitled "Riding with Lady Luck." This week's posts can be found by clicking on Adobe Soup: the Unzipped Life of Candace Mann and scrolling down the home page. Thanks for reading - either here or there!