{"id":4701,"date":"2021-07-28T15:18:50","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T22:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=4701"},"modified":"2021-07-28T15:18:50","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T22:18:50","slug":"the-pond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/4701","title":{"rendered":"The Pond"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now that he is no longer an aspiring academic, Michael Darling, forty-three, tall and good-looking, is letting his curly brown hair grow long for the first time in twenty years. And Michael\u2019s cute and curvaceous wife Daisy, forty-one, hasn\u2019t had her shoulder-length reddish brown hair cut since she gave birth a year and a month ago to their daughter Jenna. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the last year and a half the\nDarlings have lived in their big modern house on three acres adjacent to\nZiggurat Farm, two miles inland from the northern California coastal burg of\nMercy, and they cannot imagine wanting to live anywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three Ziggurat Farm kids and\nthree kids from Mercy are homeschooling on the farm, and Michael, an\nornithologist and wildlife biologist, and his sister Caroline, a botanist, are the\nhomeschoolers\u2019 science teachers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In mid-April, on a cool cloudy Thursday\nmorning, the six homeschoolers gather in the living room of the Ziggurat Farm\nfarmhouse to await Michael and Caroline, a field trip in the offing. The three\nfarm kids are Vivienne, Henri, and Arturo, the kids from town Irenia, Larry, and\nAlma. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larry is thirteen and an only child.\nHe and his parents, his father a physicist, his mother a psychotherapist, came\nto Mercy four years ago, their move from Berkeley precipitated by Larry\u2019s poor\nhealth and his being a target of bullies at the public schools he attended. Skinny\nand extremely nearsighted, Larry was diagnosed with an eating disorder (he\ndidn\u2019t eat much) and depression (he had no friends and was reluctant to go\noutside), conditions his parents hoped would disappear with the move to Mercy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, public school in Mercy provided\nno respite for Larry from bullying and teasing, and when he began homeschooling\nat Ziggurat Farm eight months ago, Larry was still painfully thin, had a\nchronic cough, spoke in a nasal falsetto, fidgeted constantly, and was afraid\nto make eye contact with his teachers, schoolmates, and<\/em> his parents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This morning when Larry\u2019s father\nArthur brought Larry to Ziggurat Farm for the day, Larry gave his father a hug\nand a kiss, jumped out of the car, and ran to join Henri and Vivienne kicking\nthe soccer ball around on the playing field near the barn. Arthur sat in the\ncar watching his son and weeping grateful tears because Larry has grown six\ninches in the last eight months, gained fifteen pounds, his cough is gone, his\nvoice has dropped an octave, he no longer fidgets, and he is happy all the time\nnow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alma is twelve, also an only child,\nborn in Portland, Oregon. When she was six-years-old and just starting First\nGrade with dear friends she had been in preschool and kindergarten with, her parents,\non the spur of the moment, bought the only optometry practice in Mercy, and a\nfew weeks later Alma found herself in an overcrowded school with kids she\ndidn\u2019t know and a First Grade teacher insensitive to how traumatized Alma was\nby being torn away from her beloved friends and all that was familiar to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year after moving to Mercy, Alma\nwas chronically depressed and diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder).\nShe was given drugs to address her inability to concentrate at school, and\ndrugs for her depression. Chubby and friendless, she was held back a year in Third\nGrade and grouped with kids with learning disabilities. Her parents were\ncounseled that Alma was probably on the autism spectrum and might never be able\nto function on her own in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After eight months of homeschooling\nwith her five comrades and a delightful cast of teachers, Alma no longer takes\ndrugs, has no trouble concentrating, reads voraciously, loves to sing and draw,\nand is the star of the sewing class taught by Irenia\u2019s mother Maria. For her\ntwelfth birthday, Alma asked for a sewing machine because she loves designing\nand making clothes for herself and others, and she and Vivienne are launching a\nline of clothing to sell on the Ziggurat Farm web site called Shirts & Skirts<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irenia is fourteen, tall and\nbeautiful, a superb athlete and a marvelous singer. Her parents are Russian and\nshe speaks English with a slight Russian accent. She spends four nights a week\nat the farm and self-identifies as one of the farm kids. She makes her bed on a\nmattress on the floor in Vivienne\u2019s bedroom, does more than her share of\nchores, and is learning to cook from Philip, Vivienne and Arturo\u2019s father, a\ncookbook writer who used to be a professional chef. Irenia\u2019s favorite subjects\nare music, gardening, and writing, though she recently started taking Jazz\ndance at the Mercy Rec Center with Delilah, the main homeschool teacher, and is\nnow mad for dancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arturo is thirteen and greatly\nresembles his French Italian father Philip. Somewhat vain of his good looks,\nArturo wants to be an actor. He plays the guitar and sings beautifully and\nenjoys all the homeschool courses, but he especially loves reading plays,\nmemorizing lines, and acting. He is the first of the farm kids to express a\ndesire to go to college and live somewhere other than Mercy, either New York or\nLondon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to her brother saying he\nplans to leave Mercy to pursue an acting career, Vivienne, eleven, who\nresembles her lovely olive-skinned mother Lisa, declared she never<\/em> wants to leave the farm. She\naspires to write books and plays, is a zealous gardener, and loves going on\nfield trips with Michael and Caroline, especially when those field trips take\nthem to the ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henri, twelve, son of Marcel, the\nfarm vintner, and Andrea, the farm manager, lives in a cottage with his parents\na stone\u2019s throw from the farmhouse and avers that he, too, wants to live on the\nfarm for the rest of his life, though until the recent return of the very\nBritish Richardsons he imagined living with them in England and exploring the\nBritish theatre world, never mind about college. Now that the Richardsons are building\na house on land adjoining the farm, Henri can think of no reason to be anywhere\nbut here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spectacular terraced vegetable\nand flower garden at the heart of Ziggurat Farm begins on level ground and covers\nan acre as it climbs eastward up a gently sloping hill to the edge of a vast\nredwood forest last clear-cut a hundred and thirty years ago. Within that\nforest there have been a few more recent clear-cuts, one of which occurred on\nthe twelve-acre parcel just east of the farm, the parcel the Richardsons are\nbuilding their house on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael and his sister Caroline, a pretty\ngal with short brown hair and nearly as tall as Michael, lead the six\nhomeschoolers and a couple farm dogs up the wide path skirting the north side\nof the deer-fenced acre of vegetables and flowers. Beyond the garden, they\nascend through a stand of enormous redwoods and transect a quarter-acre meadow\nto arrive at the site of today\u2019s field trip\u2014a small patch of level ground at\nthe base of a steep slope, the Richardsons\u2019 land beginning at the top of this\nslope\u2014sounds of construction faint in the distance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standing on the level patch of\nground\u2014roughly fifty-feet-long and thirty-feet-wide\u2014Caroline asks, \u201cWhat do we\nmake of this place?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy place,\u201d says Larry, looking\naround, \u201cdo you mean this level area with these nine somewhat scraggly trees?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d says Caroline, smiling at\nLarry. \u201cTell us what you mean by scraggly<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell,\u201d says Larry, clearing his\nthroat in imitation of his father preparing to give a lecture, \u201cI mean these\ntrees are much younger than the trees growing in the forest we came through to\nget here, and are apparently of a different age and less robust than the trees\ngrowing uphill from us that you told us are approximately thirty-years-old. I\ndoubt very much these little trees are thirty-years-old, and the preponderance\nof yellow needles suggests an iron deficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNone of these nine trees is a\nredwood,\u201d says Henri, frowning. \u201cSeven pines and two hemlocks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat does that suggest to you?\u201d\nasks Michael, marveling at how bright and knowledgeable these kids are compared\nto most of the thousands of undergrads he taught for twenty years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell since most redwoods come up\nfrom the roots of other redwoods and not from seeds,\u201d says Henri, loving these\nkinds of inquiries, \u201cmaybe there\u2019s something in the soil disallowing redwood\nroots. A nutrient deficiency as Larry suggests or some sort of barrier to their\nroots.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe ground here is so level,\u201d says\nAlma, looking around. \u201cIf you took away these trees it would be perfect for\ncroquet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPerfectly level,\u201d says Larry, standing\nup from placing a little level on the ground. \u201cBubble right in the middle.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy do you think this patch of\nearth is so level?\u201d asks Michael, who doesn\u2019t know the answer. \u201cHere on an\notherwise sloping hill bringing us to the bottom of this steep incline?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow old are these nine trees?\u201d asks\nVivienne, looking at Caroline. \u201cMaybe that will give us a clue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re all between twelve and\nfifteen-years-old,\u201d says Caroline, who also doesn\u2019t know why this stretch of\nground is so level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI suppose,\u201d says Arturo, pursing\nhis lips in his thoughtful way, \u201csomeone may have cleared this area for a home\nsite fifteen years ago and then abandoned it, though there are no obvious signs\nof the necessary equipment having come here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOr something else may have happened\nfifteen years ago to flatten it and clear away the trees,\u201d says Vivienne,\nfrowning. \u201cThough I can\u2019t imagine what.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo obvious signs of a fire,\u201d says\nArturo, shaking head. \u201cNo burn marks on any of the bigger trees nearby. A\nmystery, indeed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo thirty years ago,\u201d says Henri,\nlooking up the steep slope, \u201cthey clear-cut the twelve acres that now belong to\nJoseph and Connie, as well as all the trees down to the bottom of this steep slope.\nHad this level ground we\u2019re standing on also<\/em>\nbeen clear-cut thirty years ago, some of these trees would be closer to\nthirty-years-old than fifteen-years-old. Yet it seems probable that whatever\nhappened here fifteen years ago was related to the clear-cutting of this slope thirty\nyears ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat might have happened here?\u201d\nasks Michael, looking up the slope and seeing a few small gullies amidst the\nresurgent forest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMudslides?\u201d says Henri, noticing\nthose same gullies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d says Irenia, who is kneeling\non the ground apart from the others. \u201cI know what was here before the mud and\nstones came down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat was here?\u201d asks Caroline,\ngazing curiously at Irenia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irenia places the palms of her hands\non the ground and closes her eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s done this before,\u201d says\nVivienne, whispering to Caroline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a pond here,\u201d says\nIrenia, seeing the place as it once was. \u201cIn a basin of stone. After they cut all\nthe trees on the steep slope, heavy rain washed down dirt and rocks and branches\nand leaves that filled the pond.\u201d She opens her eyes and looks around. \u201cThere\nwas still some water here every year for several years until finally the pond\nwas full of soil and the ground dried out and these trees began to grow.\u201d She\nstands up. \u201cThis is what I saw.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo there\u2019s a basin of stone here?\u201d\nsays Henri, excitedly. \u201cWe should dig this out and make a pond here again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf her theory is correct,\u201d says\nMichael, who sees no obvious flaw in Irenia\u2019s reasoning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am correct,\u201d says Irenia, confidently.\n\u201cThere was a pond here. That\u2019s why the ground is so level. Because water always\nseeks to be level.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBe worth a bit of excavation,\u201d says\nHenri, looking at Michael. \u201cDon\u2019t you think?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think so,\u201d says Michael, grinning\nat Caroline. \u201cIn any case, there\u2019s always lots to be learned from digging in\nthe ground.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After returning to the farmhouse for\na mid-morning snack, tools are gathered in wheelbarrows, the Ziggurat Farm\nadults join the expedition, and the enlarged gang returns to the field trip\nsite where the kids begin excavating what might have once been the edge of the\npond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A foot or so below the surface,\nsolid granite is struck, the stone grayish white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo are you saying this entire level\narea was once a pond?\u201d asks Marcel, his French accent always stronger when he\ngets excited. \u201cLike a big swimming pool.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPossibly<\/em>\nwas a pond,\u201d says Michael, unwilling to believe Irenia saw what was previously here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe should bring it back,\u201d says\nMarcel, unaware that Henri suggested the same thing. \u201cWe\u2019ll cut up these little\ntrees for firewood and hire someone with a backhoe to dig out most of the dirt\nand we\u2019ll dig the rest by hand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHuge job,\u201d says Michael, giving\nMarcel an incredulous look. \u201cAnd we\u2019re only guessing there was a pond here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t guessing,\u201d says Irenia,\nlooking up from her shoveling. \u201cI saw the pond. It was beautiful. There were\nlily pads and frogs and tall reeds growing in the shallows, and it was very\ndeep over there.\u201d She points to the south. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThink of all the birds that would\ncome here,\u201d says Daisy, sitting in a lawn chair nursing Jenna and smiling at\nher husband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe could stock it with fish,\u201d says\nArturo, looking up from his zealous digging. \u201cAnd Joseph could teach us to fly\nfish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat settles it,\u201d says Philip,\nclapping Marcel on the back. \u201cWho do we know with a backhoe?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Two mornings later, a crystal clear Saturday, the elderly couple Celia and Nathan and their beautiful housemate Delilah make their way up the hill from the farmhouse to join the homeschoolers and their parents and the Darlings and the Richardsons who have all come to watch the renowned backhoe artist Gabriel Fernandez remove the soil from what everyone hopes was once a pond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arriving at the pond site, Nathan says,\n\u201cSo this is what happened to the spring. No wonder your creek dried up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur creek?\u201d says Andrea, her German\naccent barely noticeable. \u201cWhere was it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe creek bed on the south side of\nyour garden,\u201d says Nathan, walking to the south end of the level area. \u201cYou\nstill get a little flow in the winter, but the creek used to run year round\nbecause this pool overflowed and fed the creek.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou saw this pond?\u201d asks Michael,\nexcitedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did,\u201d says Nathan, taking\nCelia\u2019s hand. \u201cWe came here in the fall every year for three years after we got\nmarried. Fifty-five years ago. We\u2019d pick apples from your orchard and then come\nup here for a picnic and a swim. I first saw the pond fifty-six<\/em> years ago when I came to prune your\napple trees for the first time. The trees were about ten-years-old. It was in\nDecember. Jose Alvaro brought me up here. He was the farm manager way back when\nbefore the Rostens sold the place to the crazy rich people who put in the\nvineyard that is no more. They didn\u2019t want me on their land because I was one\nof the more vocal opponents of their clear-cutting, so we stopped coming here\nuntil Philip and Lisa and Andrea and Marcel bought the place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was such a beautiful pond,\u201d says\nCelia, who is eighty. \u201cThere were cattails at that end.\u201d She points to the\nnorth. \u201cAnd a deep pool at the other end where it overflowed.\u201d She gives Nathan\nthe sweetest smile. \u201cThe water was so clear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSpring-fed,\u201d says Nathan, smiling\nas he remembers skinny-dipping with Celia. \u201cMallards here every time we came.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWas it as big as this whole area?\u201d\nasks Marcel, thrilled at the prospect of having a pond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPretty much,\u201d says Nathan, nodding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve determined this level area is\nfifty-two-feet-long north to south,\u201d says Larry, referring to his notes. \u201cAnd roughly\nthirty-four-feet-wide east to west.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSeems right to me,\u201d says Nathan,\ngrinning at Larry. \u201cIf memory serves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At which moment the rumbling of\npowerful engines presages the coming of Gabriel Fernandez and his big rainbow-colored\ntractor outfitted with backhoe and front loader, and Rodrigo Fernandez,\nGabriel\u2019s uncle, driving a smaller tractor with a front loader. Gabriel is in\nhis early thirties, handsome and muscular and gregarious, known locally as the\nbackhoe magician. Rodrigo is in his sixties, heavyset and soft-spoken. They\npark their machines on the edge of the site, turn off their engines, and Gabriel\njumps down to find out what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBuenos dias,\u201d says Gabriel, addressing\nthe assembly. \u201cQu\u00e9 pasa?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood to see you, Gabriel,\u201d says Marcel,\nshaking Gabriel\u2019s hand. \u201cThere was a pond here that got filled in after the\nforest up there was clear-cut and we want to get the soil out and bring the\npond back to life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBueno,\u201d says Gabriel, nodding as he\nsurveys the site. \u201cCan you cut down these little trees before we start digging?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d says Philip, getting a\nchainsaw out of one of the wheelbarrows. \u201cWhenever you say.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGracias Philip,\u201d says Gabrielle,\ncontinuing to assess the site. \u201cSo\u2026 does anyone know what the pond looked like?\nWhere it was shallow, where it was deep?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNathan and Celia know,\u201d says Lisa,\ngesturing to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAh Nathan,\u201d says Gabrielle, going\nto shake Nathan\u2019s hand. \u201cHola Celia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHola Gabriel,\u201d she says, having\nknown him since the minute he was born because she assisted the doctor who delivered\nhim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Gabriel gives Delilah a loving\nsmile and says, \u201cMaestra.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHola Gabriel,\u201d she says, blushing\nat his name for her and finding him exceedingly attractive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo tell me about this pond,\u201d says\nGabriel, returning his attention to Nathan and Celia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They describe what they remember,\nGabriel listens carefully, and when they finish, Gabriel asks, \u201cWhere do you\nwant us to put the soil? There will be lots.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell we don\u2019t want to block the\noutflow,\u201d says Nathan, looking at Andrea and Marcel to make sure they\u2019re okay\nwith him helping in the decision-making. \u201cAnd we don\u2019t want to crowd the pond\nwith piles of dirt, so\u2026 to the north on the open slope I think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodrigo climbs down from his tractor\nand walks north with Gabriel and Marcel and Andrea and Nathan until they come\nto a large open area on the sloping hill a hundred feet north of the site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAqui,\u201d says Rodrigo, nodding. \u201cEs\nbueno.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d says Marcel, nodding.\n\u201cPerfecto.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay then,\u201d says Gabriel, returning to his backhoe. \u201cThree days. We don\u2019t work on Sunday, so we finish Tuesday. Three thousand dollars a day for me, my uncle, and our beautiful machines. Agreed?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAgreed,\u201d says Andrea, who handles\nthe farm\u2019s finances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBueno,\u201d says Gabriel, shaking\nAndrea\u2019s hand. \u201cI will begin at the deep end while you cut down those trees so\nRodrigo can get in there and take away whatever I dig up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Gabriel dons his sound-blocking earphones, mounts his tractor, starts the engine, and drives slowly to a starting point at the south end of what once upon a time was a pond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At noon, great progress made, many\nof the spectators gone home, Gabriel and Rodrigo drive their tractors down to\nthe farmhouse to refuel and have lunch before resuming the excavation. The six\nhomeschoolers and Marcel and Philip and Michael and Caroline lunch with Gabriel\nand Rodrigo at the picnic tables under the oak tree near the farmhouse, the\ndelicious lunch provided by Andrea and Lisa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At an opportune moment, Vivienne asks\nGabriel, \u201cWe were wondering why you called Delilah maestra<\/em>. Do you take piano lessons from her?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d says Gabriel, smiling at the\nthought of Delilah. \u201cI play guitar. I call her maestra<\/em> because she is my healer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow did she heal you?\u201d asks Alma,\nwho also feels she\u2019s been healed by having Delilah as a teacher and friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a long story,\u201d says Gabriel,\nlooking at Philip and Marcel. \u201cCon permiso.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPor favor,\u201d says Marcel, nodding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy father who was Rodrigo\u2019s older\nbrother died when I was fifteen,\u201d says Gabriel, looking at each of the\nhomeschoolers. \u201cMy mother was very sick and couldn\u2019t work. Since we needed\nmoney and I was the oldest of the four kids, I quit school and went to work for\na landscaping company. When I was eighteen, my mother was well enough to go\nback to work and I joined the Army because they paid me a big bonus for joining\nand my family needed that money. A couple weeks later I was in North Carolina\nfor basic training and I told them I had some experience with heavy equipment\nbecause I drove a big truck and a tractor when I was landscaping, so they\ntrained me to operate heavy equipment, bulldozers and backhoes, and four months\nlater I was sent to Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy did they send you to\nAfghanistan?\u201d asks Irenia, who finds geopolitics baffling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019d been fighting a war there for\nmany years,\u201d says Gabriel, nodding as he remembers. \u201cThey told us it was to\nprotect democracy, but I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you think so?\u201d asks\nHenri, frowning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause they don\u2019t have a democracy\nin Afghanistan,\u201d says Gabriel, shaking his head. \u201cBut I can\u2019t talk about that\nbecause I don\u2019t know enough. All I wanted to do was survive, and somehow I did,\nthough there were many days when I didn\u2019t think I would. We were in some terrible\nbattles. I was driving a bulldozer and doing backhoe work, but the fighting\ncame to me, you know, so\u2026 I saw many terrible things and some of my friends\nwere wounded and some were killed. And when I had served my three years and expected\nto come home, they extended me for another six months. I couldn\u2019t believe it. I\nwent to my commanding officer and said I signed up for three years. Why wasn\u2019t\nI going home? He said there was a clause in my contract allowing them to extend\nme in emergencies and they were short on heavy equipment operators. After that\nI woke up every day feeling sure I was going to die. Then I stopped sleeping\nbecause when I fell asleep I had nightmares. Without sleep I couldn\u2019t\nconcentrate and I started making mistakes in my work. One day my bulldozer hit\none of our jeeps. I thought it was twenty feet away, but I hit it. Nobody was\nhurt, but the jeep was destroyed. So they had me evaluated by a psychologist\nand he said I was suffering from PTSD and ordered me sent home. A month later I\nwas back in Mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is PTSD?\u201d asks Irenia, aching\nin sympathy with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPost Traumatic Stress Disorder. It\nmeans even though the trauma is over, my body and my brain still thought I was\nin Afghanistan, still in the Army, still fearing for my life every minute.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo what did you do?\u201d asks Arturo,\nhorrified by what befell Gabriel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hid in my mother\u2019s house for three\nmonths. I was afraid to go out and kept thinking I was having a heart attack.\nSo Rodrigo drove me to the VA hospital in Oakland and I stayed there for three\nweeks and they gave me some treatments and put me on medicine for anxiety and I\ncame home. But I was still afraid to go out and couldn\u2019t sleep so I was tired\nall the time and the drugs made me numb and I started to think maybe I didn\u2019t\nwant to keep living. And then one day my good friend Ricardo, a fantastic\nmusician, he can play anything, he gave me a guitar and gave me lessons every\nday and I started to feel better. Playing guitar calmed me down and gave me\nsomething to focus on. So I decided to take less of the anxiety medicine so I\nwouldn\u2019t feel so numb, and I started to feel even better, but then the\nnightmares came back and I began to feel hopeless again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDid you go back to taking more\nanxiety medicine?\u201d asks Alma, who used to take drugs for her ADD and depression\nand hated how the drugs made her feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was going to,\u201d says Gabriel, smiling\nat Alma, \u201cbut right before I did, Ricardo said he wanted to take me to a\nconcert in town at the art gallery, a piano concert. I said I was afraid to go.\nI could barely go out of the house, barely walk around the block without\nfreaking out. How could I go to a concert and be with all those people? He said\nhe would stay beside me and never leave me alone. His wife Lisa would be with\nus and they would take care of me. He begged me to go with him. He said he knew\nit would help me. So I said okay and they took me to the gallery, and I started\nto freak out. I said, \u2018Ricardo take me home,\u2019 and he said, \u2018Just one more\nminute, Gabriel. Please.\u2019 And then Delilah, your teacher, she was only fifteen,\nshe came out and sat down at the grand piano and played a nocturne she\ncomposed, and I couldn\u2019t believe what I was hearing. Her music was more\nbeautiful to me than anything I have ever known in my life. I closed my eyes\nand her music came into me, into my body and into my brain, and I could feel my\nfear leaving me. There was no room for the fear with her music in me, no room\nfor my sorrow and my guilt for what I did in the war. There was only her music,\nand her music was love. And it healed me. Not all the way, but enough so I knew\nI would be well again one day. That is why I call her maestra<\/em>, because she is the master of my healing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDid you ever hear her play again?\u201d\nasks Vivienne, her eyes full of tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh yes, many times,\u201d says Gabriel,\nhis eyes full of tears, too. \u201cRicardo\u2019s wife Lisa is good friends with Delilah,\nso we got to hear her play at the Richardsons many times, and seven more times\nat the gallery. And every time I hear her play, she heals me more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

fin<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Magician<\/a>   <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that he is no longer an aspiring academic, Michael Darling, forty-three, tall and good-looking, is letting his curly brown hair grow long for the first time in twenty years. And Michael\u2019s cute and curvaceous wife Daisy, forty-one, hasn\u2019t had her shoulder-length reddish brown hair cut since she gave birth a year and a month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6711,6908,6909,6910,6651,3455,6907,6913,9,33,6911,6912,6788],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4705,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4701\/revisions\/4705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}