Enchanting Treve – Chapt 1
Hi folks, here is Chapter 1 of my novel, Enchanting Treve.
This novel represents so much as it is told from the perspective of three strong women who are doing their best to live their lives to the fullest in the face of life’s challenges.
It is also a journey down memory lane for those of us who grew up in the country or who visited family who lived in the country when we were kids.
With this novel I held nothing back – it brought the tears as well as the joys of those days into sharp relief. The intense struggles we face as we progress through the phases of our lives, with their pleasant, not-so-pleasant, and bittersweet content…friendship, loss, and forbidden love…accompanied by the deep love that we have for those bright spirits that decorate our lives with joy…our dogs.
I hope that, in some small way, this short excerpt from Enchanting Treve is the beginning of an epic journey back home.
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(1)
Sir Ingram Beaverbrook Park circa 2026
THEY SAY THAT SOMETIMES IT IS HARD TO DETERMINE EXACTLY WHEN SOMETHING CHANGES. Sometimes it is simply a matter of waking up and realizing that you are now living the times that you felt would happen…at some point…but in the future. Always the future.
She didn’t know how or when things changed, just like she didn’t know who they were, they who seemed to know so much about everything. All she knew is that one day she woke up and she was 65.
“Don’t ever grow old,” Grammie Annie used to say, like there was a choice to be made.
Yoga and running seemed to hold off the scourge. It kept her joints supple and her body lean. It did nothing to soften the wrinkles, but at this point she didn’t give a shit about her wrinkly face, or her sagging boobs. Leave that fussing for the young chicks.
But don’t tell her she is old. That is when she steels up like Diana the Huntress and looks you square in the eye. See here, young pup…no age in these eyes. Just jade green, hazel-tinged hammered fire.
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When she woke the sun was low, painting the sky purple and salmon pink. Heading out to the porch with her coffee was part of her morning ritual. So was doing ten sun salutations.
Namaste…arms up…swoop down…right leg back…downward dog…upward dog…breathe in…breathe out…stretch, open up… Namaste…hello morning…
It was going to be another hot August day – the weatherman on the radio said “29 gonna feel like 33” with the humidity. Thought she’d get her run in early, before she would have to swim through the air.
There was still a bit of the night’s crispness hanging in pockets of shadow as she jogged along, passing other early morning runners getting in a few kilometers before they headed off to work.
Nothing urgent to do and all day to do it in…She was glad now that she was retired. Teaching kids these days seemed more challenging, but then folks said the same when she was teaching middle school…It must be hard working with those kids, such a hard age…
She had enjoyed her time at Elm Park Middle School, and still volunteered with the Drama department, getting the kids ready school productions.
She loved creating the magic that was theatre. After all, she had reason to believe in magic…
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Tessa stopped at the brick water fountain at her halfway point, taking a drink in short slurps. Running gave her time to think about the day ahead. As she began to wake up her lungs and work the kinks out of her back – the first ten minutes or so sucked– but after that she could relax and enjoy the scenery, sing songs to herself, and make the day’s plans.
It was almost 8:30 when she passed the ivy-covered wrought iron fence that was her 8k marker. She glanced at her watch – a bit faster than yesterday. She was feeling good.
Wiping the sweat from her neck and chest with a small towel she’d tucked into the waistband of her shorts, she walked over to the shaded area just beyond the fence, then began her cool-down stretches. Meeting Wanda for supper – 6:00 pm at La Belle’s…a little vino, some sassy conversation…maybe stopping by at Kyle’s on the way home…She hadn’t seen the kids for a few days…maybe tuck them into bed…
Behind her, well established trees and shrubs cooled and softened the area, the remnants of what was an Estate established in the late 1700’s by a young English Lord, Sir Ingram Beaverbrook. It had been donated by the family a couple of centuries later as a permanent green area for the city’s citizens. Oak, maple, birch, and surprisingly, a few elms that had survived the Dutch Elm disease epidemic of the 1970’s, grew stately and resolutely along the St. John River, from which the park extended.
Tessa had spent many afternoons in this park, first running and biking with her young husband, then sharing picnics and the water park as a family with their two children, then again as a couple of empty nesters attempting to reconnect on the shaded gravel pathways. Now it was part of her well-broken in workout routine.
Her favourite spot was the area where she finished up her run, just inside the park beyond the iron gate, beside the white lilac bushes with their leaves shaped like hearts, under the stand of weeping willows, tendrils swaying in the soft summer breeze. Weeping willows reminded her of Grammie and Pop, and their lil’ ole sweetie dog, Treve.
As a young woman she discovered the local Buddhist community and had learned to meditate, a practice she continued every day since. In the morning on a workday the park was nearly empty. It was a great place to just sit and clear her mind for a half hour or so.
Time passed slowly for Tessa these days, but it seemed to speed up when she was meditating. Today she gradually came back to the present when she heard someone cough as they walked along, dragging their feet – the person sat down heavily on the bench on the other side of a groomed hedge.
Presence noted…Tessa turned her mind once again to the beauty of this place, the soft wind, and her peace of mind…
The person on the other side of the hedge began to sob.
Tessa sat still, not wanting to interrupt what she surmised was a private moment. Nobody could tell she was there – if needed, she could slip away quietly up the grassy hill behind this sitting area.
The sobbing continued, getting stronger and louder. The girl, it sounded like a girl’s cry, must have figured she was alone. Ten minutes went by and the girl kept crying…such a heart-wrenching wails that Tessa’s own eyes filled with tears.
She cleared her throat. “Hey dear, you okay?”
No answer, but the crying stopped.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you…or intrude on your privacy…but honey, you seem heartbroken…is there anything I can do?” Tessa asked.
“No…there’s nothing that anybody can do now,” a voice, small and vulnerable, floated over the hedge. “Not unless you’re God and can raise the dead.”
Wow. This person had lost someone, and just now, it seemed, by those wails.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Tessa said with tears in her voice. Man, did she know how that felt. Those first surreal moments when you fight for breath, mind stunned into silence…
A few moments passed.
“Thank you.”
Tessa thought a moment. She didn’t want to butt in where she wasn’t wanted, but she didn’t want to leave without saying something more…
“I know what it feels like to lose someone…lost my mother two years ago last month…seems like just yesterday.”
The girl took a shuddering breath. “You are probably going to think I am foolish, but I’m not crying over a person. I am sad over my dog. He died this morning.”
Her voice felt like the bristles of a porcupine… Don’t go there… This girl isn’t ready for anyone’s ridicule over her bawling her eyes out over her dog.
Tessa’s throat tightened as she blinked away tears. “Honey,” she whispered, “I would be the last person to say you were foolish for crying over losing your dog. A dog can be the best friend a girl could ever have. I have shed many a tear over losing dogs. The longer you live the more you lose, it’s a fact of life. You cry all you want.”
“He was my friend…” The girl began to cry again. Heaving, dHeep, gasping sobs.
“Hey, can I give you a hug? I think that you probably could use a hug,” Tessa said gently through the hedge.
It took a minute for the girl to answer. Tessa heard her blow her nose.
“Okay…”
Brown hair dyed a reddish pink, which hung over a tribal style tattoo that extended up the left side of her neck and ended somewhere behind her ear. Bone-coloured earplugs ended in a point by her chinbone. Heavy, dark mascara ran down pale white cheeks, and a bit of tissue caught on her nose ring. Her red-rimmed anguished wet blue eyes…were wary, but so needing comfort…They were the color of Tessa’s mother’s eyes when Mum still remembered who she was and who Tessa was…
The girl’s skinny shoulders had worked up sweaty hot under her dark blue shirt. A little girl so soft…bony really…hidden away under all that cloth…
She hung on to Tessa, but only for a moment, with the strength of a drowning person. Then she backed away, looking at the ground.
“Thanks for that.” She sounded embarrassed.
“You’re welcome.”
“Prince Charles.”
“Prince Charles?”
“His name was Prince Charles. I wanted to call him Prince, but we thought that Charles sounded good with the name Prince. Like the guy from England. The guy who is King now.”
“Every dog should have a middle name,” Tessa said, nodding her agreement.
Originally Published on https://akasha111blog.wordpress.com/
