The Rescue - Nicholas Sparks [31]
1936–1972
Year by year, visit by visit, Taylor had grown older; he was now the same age his father was when he’d passed away. He’d changed from a frightened young boy to the man he was today. His memory of his father, however, had ended abruptly on that last dreadful day. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t picture what his father would look like if he were still alive. In Taylor’s mind, his father would always be thirty-six. Never younger, never older—selective memory made that clear. And so, of course, did the photo.
Taylor closed his eyes, waiting for the image to come. He didn’t need to carry the photo with him to know exactly how it looked.
It still sat on the fireplace mantel in the living room. He’d seen it every day for the past twenty-seven years.
The photo had been taken a week before the accident, on a warm June morning right outside their home. In the picture his father was stepping off the back porch, fishing pole in hand, on his way to the Chowan River. Though he wasn’t visible, Taylor remembered that he had been trailing behind his father, still in the house collecting his lures, scrambling to find everything he needed. His mother had been hiding behind the truck, and when she had called his father’s name, Mason had turned and she’d unexpectedly snapped the picture. The film had been sent away to be developed, and because of that, it hadn’t been destroyed with the other photos. Judy didn’t pick it up until after the funeral and had cried while looking at it, then slipped it into her purse. To others it wasn’t anything special—his father walking in midstride, hair uncombed, a stain on the buttoned shirt he was wearing—but to Taylor it had captured the very essence of his father. It was there, that irrepressible spirit that defined the man he was, and that was the reason it had affected his mother so. It was in his expression, the gleam of his eye, the jaunty yet keenly alert pose.
A month after his father had died, Taylor had sneaked it out of her purse and fallen asleep while holding it. His mother had come in, found the photo pressed into his small hands, his fingers curled tightly around it. The photo itself was smudged with tears. The following day she’d taken the negative in to have a copy made, and Taylor glued four Popsicle sticks to a discarded piece of glass and mounted the photo. In all these years he’d never considered changing the frame.
Thirty-six.
His father seemed so young in the picture. His face was lean and youthful, his eyes and forehead showing only the faintest outlines of wrinkles that would never have the chance to deepen. Why, then, did his father seem so much older than Taylor felt right now? His father had seemed so . . . wise, so sure of himself, so brave. In the eyes of his nine-year-old son, he was a man of mythic proportion, a man who understood life and could explain nearly everything. Was it because he’d lived more deeply? Had his life been defined by broader, more exceptional experiences? Or was his impression simply the product of a young boy’s feelings for his father, including the last moment they’d been together?
Taylor didn’t know, but then he never would. The answers had been buried with his father a long time ago.
He could barely remember the weeks immediately after his father died. That time had blurred strangely into a series of fragmented memories: the funeral, staying with his grandparents in their home on the other side of town, suffocating nightmares when he tried to sleep. It was summer—school was out—and Taylor spent most of his time outside, trying to blot out what had happened. His mother wore black for two months, mourning the loss. Then, finally, the black was put away. They found a new place to live, something smaller, and even though nine-year-olds have little comprehension of death and how to deal with it, Taylor knew exactly what his mother was trying to tell him.
It’s just the two of us now. We’ve got to go on.
After that fateful summer Taylor had drifted through school, earning decent but unspectacular grades, progressing