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Quarter-Light -- ©Brenda Carter  "I thought if I just told you my story, that would be enough, that God would do the rest and you would understand. I prayed and prayed about what I needed to do to reach you, and God kept telling me that if I opened myself up, he would do whatever it took to bring you back."
"Sandy, I'm not coming back. You know that." Sandy's voice becomes smaller, higher. "I don't want to lose you." "I don't want to lose you either." She's crying now; her words come choked and clotted. "I wish I'd never said anything, that we could forget this ever happened. I want to pretend that nothing ever happened. I love you." For the first time since my trip to Ojai, her words ring true. For a giddy moment, I imagine how Sandy and I might actually pull it off, walk around this giant strip mine as if it isn't there. Then there is Rin's hand on my forearm, Rin's face on the pillow, clear-eyed. "I love you too, but there's no way I can pretend, and I don't believe you can either. I don't think we can count on 'God' to get us out of this one; we need to start helping each other." I hear a long silence on the other end, then barely catch, "I'll have to pray about that." The line goes dead before I have a chance to say good night. *** In my dream, an invisible sitar and harmonium play a meandering tune I'm unable to follow. It drones and shimmers, as elusive as a mirage, until a tabla's steady beat leads me down a path into the music. I'm looking out over a flat green lawn onto a calm, straight river. A narrow boat of rosewood floats by, carrying a woman draped in a sari dyed a dense, creamy shade of yellow. She sits erect under a yellow umbrella. When she lets the scarf covering her head slip to her shoulders, I see her face, Sandy's face. Our eyes meet and she begins singing to me in a language heard only in dreams. Her song continues as she floats down river and out of sight. When I wake up, I search my mind for a remnant of the tune to hold on to, but I find the words instead: "I come singing." The music has vanished, though I still feel it pulsing and warming me from within. Nothing is any clearer than when I fell asleep. There is only the feeling of Sandy, impossibly distant, impossibly near.
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