Seven Miles with Otis

At mile two, my father asked if the chapel had moved.

“Same place as last year,” I said.

“Then someone has stretched the road.”

He laughed at his own joke. I didn’t. I could feel a blister forming on my heel, and his limp had become steady enough that I could count it: three steps, a hitch, three steps, a hitch.

Every October, our family walked seven miles from the old church to the hill chapel. This was our family’s pilgrimage, not a rule of the church. My grandmother had started it after a hard year. My mother kept it going because she liked the hill, the singing, and the excuse to make us spend a morning together.

Mother had died in January. Before she died, I’d promised to go with Dad this year. I pictured arriving beside him for the first hymn, the one she used to sing much louder than anybody around her.

I had not pictured watching him pretend that his hip didn’t hurt.

“We could stop,” I said.

“We are stopping.” He pointed at the rest bench ahead. “Then we shall begin again.”

My father, Otis, was sixty-four. Until last year he’d been the man waiting for the rest of us, turning around with his hands on his hips. Now his right hand kept reaching toward his hip and then moving away as if I’d caught him doing something rude.

My brother Wade pulled up in the support van. He had our water and lunches. He also had to be home by noon to sleep before his night shift. He had told us that twice at breakfast.

“Good progress,” he said through the window. “For people walking to a different chapel.”

“Your jokes are worse than his,” I said.

“Mine come with seats.”

Dad sat on the bench while Wade handed him water. He drank slowly. The road ahead climbed between low stone walls. We still had five miles, and the service began at eleven.

“Get in,” I told him. “We can walk the last bit.”

“I’ve walked this road for thirty years.”

“You can still have walked it for thirty years.”

Wade got out and leaned against the van. “I can’t wait here all morning. That’s not a punishment. It’s a shift.”

Dad lowered his bottle. “I know.”

I was angry with both of them. Wade could have asked for another night off. Dad could have told me the truth about his hip. I could have bought better shoes. None of those things would happen before eleven.

A family passed us. Their small boy was running ahead and coming back, traveling every yard at least three times. Mother used to say that was how I walked. I watched him until I couldn’t see him around the bend.

“She’d hate this argument,” I said.

Dad looked at me. “She enjoyed several of our arguments.”

“Not this one.”

“No. Probably not.”

He tried standing. His face tightened before he found his balance. I stopped talking and offered my arm. He took it.

Wade opened the van’s side door. “There’s a flat lane half a mile below the chapel. I’ll drop you there, or take you all the way. Your choice.”

Dad stared up the empty road. Then he asked Wade to help him into the seat.

I climbed in beside him. Neither of us spoke while we passed the miles we’d meant to walk. Through the window I saw walkers pull aside for the van. I was sure they were looking at us, though most were looking at the hill.

At the lower lane, Wade stopped. It was ten-thirty-five. Half a mile on flat ground might take twenty minutes. With Dad, I couldn’t tell.

“You can stay with me,” Wade told me. “I’ll drive you to the top. You can sing, and Dad can come up after.”

That was the arrangement I wanted. I wanted the first hymn. I wanted to be in Mother’s place when the music started.

Dad looked through the open door at the lane. “I’ll try this part.”

“You don’t have to,” I said.

“Neither do you.”

I helped him down. Wade waited while I stood between the van and Dad. From the hill came the first faint sound of someone warming up the organ.

“I promised her I’d go with you,” I said.

“You are with me, Celia. You’ve been with me since breakfast.”

He wasn’t asking me to stay. That made the choice harder.

I got my lunch from the van.

“We’ll meet you at the top,” I told Wade. “Go and sleep.”

He kissed Dad’s cheek, squeezed my shoulder, and drove away. We watched the van turn the corner. Then Dad offered his arm as if he were escorting me to a fine dinner.

We walked. Slowly.

At a gate halfway up the lane, we rested. It was nearly eleven. He needed fifteen more minutes sitting down. He asked about the apartment I’d moved into. I told him the man upstairs practiced the trumpet every evening, but seemed unable to practice the same song twice.

“Ask him for your mother’s hymn,” Dad said.

“Don’t give him ideas.”

Dad laughed, then sat quietly until he was ready. I could hear singing from the chapel. Mother’s hymn had begun without us.

I didn’t ask him to hurry.

By the time we reached the door, the congregation was seated. My aunt shifted along the back bench. We slipped in, breathing hard, and she passed Dad a cushion without saying anything.

I was disappointed. Sitting there did not remove it. I had wanted one thing from the morning, and I had missed it.

Then the next hymn began. Dad stood with one hand on the bench. I stood beside him. His voice was thin at first, then stronger. He sang the wrong line in the second verse. I nudged him. He kept singing it.

Outside afterward, he said, “Next year I think I’ll drive.”

“Good.”

“Will you come?”

“Yes. But I’d like to choose a song.”

He considered that as seriously as if I’d asked to move the chapel.

“One song,” he said.

“And no trumpet.”