I slowed my black Chevy Blazer and made a left turn down a narrow, dusty gravel road. Buried deep in the piney woods of the Appalachian highlands sat my destination, a small, brown, three-room log cabin. I call the twelve acres of dense forest surrounding the cabin "Tara" – not after the plantation on Gone with the Wind, but after my high school sweetheart. I had thought we would last forever, but she went to college on the other side of the country and we lost contact. The beautiful Appalachian lot had fallen into my possession when I was only nineteen: my dad’s older brother left it to me in his will.
This was only my third trip up to Tara. My first had been with Tim, my roommate in college. He was an architecture major, and he loved the great outdoors. When he found out about the land, he all but begged to go with me to check out the place. In the week we spend surrounded by the majestic pines under the bright blue sky, we grew closer than ever before. Our friendship had been superficial, but the powers of nature turned it into a deep bond. With this new-found support, college was a much simpler task.
After graduation, Tim took a job in Oregon while I stayed in school to work on my masters degree. We haven’t seen each other since.
I topped the last ridge and stopped the Blazer. There it sat – my own heaven on earth. Most of the cabin hid in the shadows of the tall pines, but the soft sunlight illuminated the cedar door as if Mother Nature herself recognized the uniqueness of this mountain hideaway. I climbed out of the Chevy and walked toward the door. A cool, gentle breeze caressed my face and trickle of the nearby creek soothed my aching head. Slowly, I pushed open the small wooden door. Everything was just as I remembered. A rustic table sat near the left wall, surrounded by three wooden stools my uncle had crafted out of the towering pines. On the back wall were two doorways, the left leading to a primitive kitchen and the right to the tiny bedroom. In the center of the floor lay and old, trampled rug; and along the right wall sat a small faded green couch with down cushions – the couch where Samantha and I recommitted our love for each other.
Samantha was a psychology major and a cheerleader at the university. We met about the same time Tim left for Oregon. It was almost love at first sight, and we were married the next June. The first two years were great, but things got a little rocky the third year. My job with NASA kept me away from home a lot, and we continuously tried unsuccessfully to have a child. By our fourth anniversary the marriage had almost disintegrated. I brought Samantha to the cabin hoping to put the marriage back together.
Those tall Tennessee pines didn’t let me down. The chirping robins and beautiful daisies produced the same effect on Samantha that they had on Tim, drawing us deeper in love than we had ever been before. The creek was her favorite spot amidst the dozen acres. There, on a large patch of soft green moss, we found each other again.
For the next few months our marriage was as it had been when it began. Not long after we returned home, we discovered we were expecting. Then the unthinkable happened. Just three weeks before her due date, a drunk driver slammed his Ford Ranger into Samantha’s Maxima at a rural intersection, knocking her into a coma. She recovered two days later, but she had lost our child, and with him, her love for me. Our divorce became final only a month ago.
I walked back out to the Blazer to get my Smith and Wesson. "It is time," I thought to myself. The wind whistled hauntingly through the dense forest as I trudged toward the brook. Halfway down the path, I paused as a robin sang a majestic tune. He was in perfect sync with the babble of the creek: his notes, the melody; the creek, the accompaniment. His song finished, I hurried to the creek side, for the robin had placed doubts in my head. I had to do it now. I stood on the same beautiful patch of moss where Samantha and I had been the year before. I raised the pistol to my right temple. The cold steel sent shivers down my arm as I fingered the trigger. Once again the robin began to chirp softly. I closed my eyes, trying to block it out of my head; but the robin only cheeped louder. Soon, another robin joined in in perfect harmony, their song crying out to my soul.
I lowered the pistol and dropped to my knees sobbing. I couldn’t do it. When Samantha left, I thought I had nothing left to live for; but now I saw that I had this land and all of the infinite beauty of nature in my life. I had to go on – I had to live.
I lay by the brook for a couple of hours enjoying being alive and able to be there. Then I tossed the gun into the creek and strolled back up to the cabin, where I spent the night. The next morning, I climbed into the Blazer and headed home.
At around eight that evening, I parked the Chevy in my driveway. As I stepped out of the truck, I heard the phone ringing inside. I rushed to unlock the door and answer the phone.
"Hello."
"David Larson?"
"Yes."
"David, this is Tara."