Page 32 of Spring Showers

“I heard that,” Anne shouted from somewhere nearby.

“Good.” Margret shot back. “I said I didn’t have anything I needed to let go of, except maybe her.”

“I heard that too. Now come look at mine,” Anne said.

Thandie helped Margret to her feet, and they made their way toward where Anne’s voice had come from behind a clump of shrubs. When they came around the foliage, Thandie was unable to hold in her giggle. Anne had stacked a similar, albeit much larger structure, that had an uncanny resemblance to Margret.

“I’ll be damned, if that doesn’t look just like...” Margret covered her mouth as she realized that Anne’s stacked stones were positioned in her likeness.

“I think you two missed the point of this meditation,” Thandie said and stood between them. “Are you two always like this, with the jabs and teasing?”

“When you’ve known someone as long as we have, it just makes life more fun when you don’t take things so seriously,” Anne said.

“I whole-heartedly concur,” Margret added.

Thandie looked around at the other guests, who were beginning to stand and check out the other guests’ cairns. “Looks like everyone is about through. Why don’t you make your way back soon? I’ll check on the snacks.”

In the shadow of the dock, the chef had delivered a delicious charcuterie spread, complete with a pitcher of sparkling sangria and a plate of chocolates. She wanted to dive right in but knew the guests’ needs came first. With any luck, there would be some leftovers to munch on while she cleaned up from the activity.

If not, she fully planned on hunting down the chef, introducing herself properly, and requesting a mini version to enjoy later in her cabin. The chef was an enigma, popping in and out without being spotted, all the while preparing the most mouth-watering food she had eaten in her life.

“What’s for lunch?” William said, with a very smiley Clara on his arm.

“Oh,” Thandie said and moved away from the table. “This is just a snack. Lunch will be served at two in thecucina. Help yourself. Did you enjoy your meditations?”

The two forty-somethings touched noses. “I think this was exactly the breakthrough we both needed,” Clara said. “Sometimes you just hold on to things for so long that you forget that you can let them go.”

“Amen to that!” Thandie said. The woman’s sentiment rang true in more than one way.

Thandie wondered if she was holding on too tightly to the hurt, the anger, and the humiliation that had been weighing her down for months. Running away from it all had only added to her burden. Now she was brokeandbroken.

Taking a cue from Clara, and heeding her own advice, Thandie knew that she was in control of either holding on or letting go. Davis made his choice when he left her, and she had chosen to beat herself up over it ever since. Thandie was done holding onto his mistakes any longer.

She raced back to where she had stacked the one stone. Passing Grant on her way, he attempted to stop her by holding her arm, but she breezed by him.

“Where’s the fire?” Grant yelled as she ran past.

There was no time to answer him. There was no time to explain, or even a desire to do so. She knew what she needed to do. She slowed as she reached the spot where her tiny little rock sat on another, and she kicked them apart. That act alone was renewing. She had assigned the wrong thing to the poor rock.

This time, as she carefully selected the best rocks, flat and not too smooth, she spoke the hurts aloud. “Broken relationships. Lost time. Feeling sorry for myself. All the tears, wasted.” She gathered a few more stones and added them to this list. “Kisses, wasted. Laughs we never truly shared because you were too serious to understand me. Goodbye Davis,” she said as she stacked the seventh stone. It balanced, but not well. She took one more that had a slight concave side. “Davis,” she said again for good measure as she placed the apex stone on the cairn.

“Who’s Davis?” Grant asked, having caught up to her.

“No one now.” Thandie stood and looked at her tower, feeling much lighter than she had a few minutes ago, and much lighter than she had been feeling for months. She swiped the dirt from her hands and placed them on her hips. “You know how this could be better?”

Grant’s face said he had an idea but didn’t want to say it out loud. He shrugged his shoulders and nudged her to continue with a single chin nod.

She knew what she needed to do, though she hesitated. Her stack of rocks, each one representing the things she wanted so badly to let go of, the things sheneededto let go of if she were ever to move on, stared back at her, begging for her to reconsider. “No more,” she said and kicked the stones as hard as she could. Her days playing soccer in grade-school came in clutch as the stones flew through the air and scattered amongst the pebbled old shore and long grasses. Her trauma and regrets came to rest in obscurity where the stones met the wildflowers dancing in the sunlight.

Applause echoed off the stones. She turned around and her cheeks heated at the sight of several guests watching the unplanned entertainment. She could do nothing but make the most of it. “That felt better than I thought it would.” She laughed.

“All I know is I would not want to beDavisright now,” Grant quipped.

Thandie let out a deep breath. Shewasready to move on. “Thank you all for coming today, and I’ll see you back down here at sundown for the bonfire.”

“Can I help you clean up?” Grant asked. “I know I shouldn’t, but I want to.”

“No. I can handle it?—”

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