Puzzle Pieces (formerly Reach for the Sky)

Chapter 20

"Come on in." The clicking of Coach Davidson's computer keys stops as I step into her room, Hope slightly ahead of me.

"You wanted to talk to me about the first meet?" I ask.

"Yes. I talked to the Board of Athletics about Maria being your guide. It took hours of arguing and dozens of emails, but I got permission for you to run with her."

"Really?" I'm grinning now, and bouncing up and down a little with the energy of the thought of being allowed to race.

"Really." I almost believe I detect a trace of a smile in her voice. "Now, you had better run fast. I didn't do all that begging for nothing." I feel that she's trying to end our conversation, but I linger in front of her desk for a few moments. "Is there something else you need?"

I might not get this good a chance again. I take a deep breath, wondering why it seems to take so much courage to ask her a simple question. "A few weeks ago, the team and I were running off of our usual paths and came across this little clearing, with bricks laid into the ground and a few benches." Davidson inhales sharply, but says nothing. "And– the other girls didn't see it, but I felt an engraving in one of the bricks. It had the name Louisiana Davidson, and I was just wondering..."

Davidson doesn't say anything for a long moment, and I think she's about to send me away. Finally, though, she lets out a long breath and says, "She was my twin sister."

Five words, but the emotions behind them are impossible for me to describe. I suddenly feel horribly guilty for prying. Why did I have to be so nosy and insensitive? Why did I let my curiosity get the better of me like that? "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

Davidson cuts me off. "You remind me of her, a little." When I don't say anything, she continues, "Stubborn and determined, with a unique power to make the whole room smile." I couldn't speak now, even if I wanted to. "She ran cross country, too. We both did. We'd match each other stride for stride, leading every race. Until..." She doesn't have to finish the sentence. Until she died. Until Coach Davidson's other half stopped running forever, leaving her to go on alone. I guess it's no mystery anymore why she's so bitter and short with everyone all the time.

Davidson seems to want to say more, to tell the story she's kept inside for all these years behind a wall of sharp unfriendliness. "What happened?" The words are almost a whisper, but it's all it takes. After collecting herself for a moment, Davidson begins to speak.

"Louisiana and I always did everything together, ever since we could walk. We were best friends as well as sisters. All through elementary school— we went to school right here, in Bakersfield— we were in all the same classes and did all the same activities. So, of course, we both began the same sport in middle school: cross country. We found we were good at it, too– one or the other of us would win every race we ran. We were almost exactly the same pace, and there was no predicting which one of us would come in first in each race.

"We ran cross country in high school, too, constantly pushing each other to train harder and run faster. Soon, we were among the best runners in the state. We both finished at almost exactly the same time, but I was named the official winner our junior year and she was champion our senior year.

"It happened two months after she won states. It was a cold Saturday morning, but sunny, and she wanted to go outside for a run. I refused to go with her; I didn't like the cold and chose the treadmill over running outdoors. I should have been with her, or stopped her from running at all...

"The blizzard came out of nowhere. It seemed as though one moment it was clear and sunny, and the next, the wind came howling in, the snow whipping around until there was a complete whiteout. I was ready to go out and look for her, despite the fact that the storm was so bad I couldn't see my hand in front of my face and the wind was strong enough to knock a person over, but my parents forced me to stay inside. Louisiana being lost in the storm was bad enough, they told me, without me out there as well.

"One hour passed, then two, and Louisiana had still not come home. My parents and I had spent the time frantically calling the police, the fire department, anyone, but the blizzard was too bad for any search parties to risk going out in it.

"The storm continued without letting up until early morning the next day. At the first sign of it abating, I was outside, searching. The whole town came together, despite the fact that it was five in the morning and still dark outside, looking for Louisiana along her favorite running routes. They found her an hour later deep into the network of trails behind the school, unconscious and half-frozen.

"She was in the hospital in a coma for five days. They were the longest five days of my life– barely sleeping or eating, sitting next to her when I was allowed, waiting outside the door when I wasn't, and returning home only for brief periods of time, when I was forced to. On the fifth day, the doctors told us she was brain-dead and would never wake up. Life support was keeping her body technically alive, but she wasn't truly living.

"We had to make the decision to turn off the machines keeping her lungs breathing and her heart beating. I was too numb to cry, then. All I could think was that she wouldn't have wanted this, for her last breath to be one a machine took for her.

"The memorial you saw in the woods was a spot she always liked to visit. There were already benches and bushes there, but the place looked long forgotten when she first found it. She made it her area, pruning the bushes and straightening out the benches that had been tipped over. Everyone in our graduating class chipped in to pay for the bricks and engraving to dedicate it to her, and a group of us went out to lay the bricks into the ground by hand. I still go out there a lot, to prune the bushes and keep it looking neat the same way she always did.

"And somehow, life went on without her. The kids who had known her graduated and moved away, and gradually, the town seems to have forgotten." Although Davidson's voice was calm through her whole narrative, I detect a slight tremor in the long breath she takes when she's finished. After a minute, she sighs. "You do remind me of her." Her voice is different from any time I've ever heard it. Her harsh, strict, exterior has fallen away, and she just sounds... Defeated. Tired. I feel a sudden rush of sympathy for her. It must have shown on my face, because I sense her straightening up. "I don't know why I told you, but you know the story now." Her defenses are back up. "Don't forget what I said to you about the meet."

She doesn't want my pity. I understand that.

I'm lost in thought as I walk home, so much that Hope constantly has to pull me to the side to keep me from crashing into things. Coach Davidson, Louisiana, my mother, my father.

Davidson, like my father, has let her loss consume her. According to my teammates, she barely ever smiles, and I've never heard her laugh. I wish I could do something for her. Help her, somehow. No one should have to live without happiness.

And I know, in the back of my mind, that I'm thinking all the same things about my father.