Tantra Goddess. Caroline Muir

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      As the cab from the airport in Kansas City turned up the drive to my roadside motel, I felt my stomach tighten as I tried to rehearse what I would tell Nank I was doing. I had to have a better story for him than the truth. How would this self-made man, this farmer’s son who graduated college and became a veterinarian in 1908, feel about his “daisy” sleeping on a mattress on the floor in her boyfriend’s friend’s back room, living off meager earnings from her jewelry sold at craft fairs and his paltry earnings shoeing horses? Nank had bought me a beautiful four-bedroom home in New Rochelle and set me up for the good life with my husband so we could adopt our first child before I turned thirty. What in the world could I say?

      But as soon as I got to the nursing home, I knew there was no need to worry. While I was so busy living my life, Nank had grown old and senile. I had expected to sit with him and hold his hand, to kiss his face and tell him I loved him, to thank him for loving me more than anyone in my young life.

      He didn’t recognize me.

      “Nank, it’s me!” I cried, sitting in the chair they’d put beside him for our visit. “It’s Carolyn … your little daisy. Don’t you remember me?” He looked ancient and lost.

      “You don’t recognize anyone, do you, Dr. Graham,” the nurse said, straightening his collar and stepping back to look at us both. She saw this all the time, didn’t she? I noticed a small card extending from the end of a plastic stick at the center of a wilting bouquet of spring flowers. I tugged it free and read, “Love from Mary”—my mother. She knew her dad was here. Did she care? Did she visit him? I had no idea what anything meant to her anymore. I had tried to reach my mother over the past few years and she had never answered or returned my calls. I just wanted was to make sure she was all right in her little apartment alone. I looked at the second bouquet, the fresh one. The card tucked into that bouquet read, “I love you, Elizabeth.”

      “His wife comes here every week,” the nurse told me. I gave her a weak smile. Maybe I should call Elizabeth. Or maybe there was no one to call.

      Guilt nearly sickened me as I held Nank’s gnarled hand and asked him to forgive me, certain that any moment he would break into a smile and we would talk, like old times. I reminded him of how Johnny and I used to salt his coffee at breakfast when we stayed there, biting our tongues to keep from laughing. “Mmmmm, delicious,” he’d always say. He taught us to play gin rummy and canasta and let us win and collect our candies and shiny quarters. I told him all about that, too.

      He fell asleep while I talked, mouth open, drool snaking its way down his roadmap face.

      After that first visit to Nank I nearly ran the mile back to my motel room to get my bearings. My grief seemed boundless. I cried and cried, and then I rallied and put myself back together. This was why I’d come, wasn’t it? To see Nank. I splashed cold water on my face, brushed my hair into place, and headed back out.

      For the next three days I was at that nursing home, getting to know the people who made up Nank’s new family, all of them overflowing with warmth and good will. When it was time to say goodbye, my chest felt horribly tight as I kissed his craggy face. I sobbed all the way back to the motel, walking the shoulder of the highway as cars sped past. I had felt like this my first night at boarding school, but that was a different kind of loneliness. There was no end in sight with this one. I crawled into the flimsy bed and prayed for sleep.

      In the morning I flew back to California and Rick picked me up at the airport in LA. We barely spoke all the way back to Jet’s house an hour north. I hated to think of what was ahead of me. The jewelry business just wasn’t cutting it, and Rick had smashed his thumb horseshoeing and couldn’t work until it was healed. There would be applications to fill out for a waitressing job at Carrow’s and other coffee shops in town. Raines, the local department store, wasn’t hiring.

      A week later, I came home tired and discouraged after a day of filling out job applications. “Your brother called,” Jet said. “He said he’s been trying to reach you. You better call him right away.”

      Johnny? Was everything all right? I grabbed my purse and headed out to find a payphone for some privacy.

      “Are you sitting down?” Johnny’s voice on the other end of the phone line sounded strangely comforting.

      “I’m in a phone booth, I can’t sit down. Are you all right?”

      “Nank died. I got the news yesterday and flew to Kansas City last night. The service was this morning. I haven’t been able to reach you.”

      “Oh, my God!” The tears came fast.

      I told Johnny I felt I had helped Nank die. I had whispered to him that he could head for the light, that I was okay, Johnny was okay, he was okay. Johnny waited a few minutes while I cried. “I need to tell you something else,” he said. “I met with a bank trustee and the attorney handling Nank’s affairs.”

      I clutched the telephone cord to my chest and tried harder to listen.

      “We both inherited a sizable trust fund.”

      “Sizable?”

      “Enough to support us for the rest of our lives if we live modestly,” he said.

      I gasped. “I applied at Carrow’s yesterday! The waitresses have to wear short skirts and knee-high black boots. I don’t have to work there! Thank you, Nank.”

      After we hung up I sat down on the grass outside the phone booth for a long time. Nank was still watching over me, my guardian angel. (“You can always count on me, my little daisy. I will never let you down.”) He had given me many gifts, taught me to value integrity and kindness, showed me love. And now he had left me set for life. Because of his gift I would be able to choose work that had real meaning to me.

      I had once believed with all my heart that I would be a good mother. But I knew now that day-to-day parenting was not a bigger life purpose for me, and I was in the process of trying to forgive myself for not showing up for my daughter the way she needed. Could my disappointment in myself as a mother propel me toward a greater good, something beyond adventure and wandering? What was I here to offer that is greater than being a good mother? I wanted to give back to life as much or more than I felt I had received.

      That day, sitting by the phone booth, I had no idea of the role destiny would play or had already played in my choices. All I knew was that opportunity lay at my feet and I was ready to start walking.