The Bridge

The Bridge

He was suffocating.

With every step that carried him further up the Golden Gate Bridge, Grant Northman could feel the noose cinching tighter.

The morning was gray and still. An occasional car sliced the oppressive silence for a moment, then receded again into the thick fog. The bleakness of the day was fitting, a reflection of the turmoil simmering inside him as he shuffled up the narrow ribbon of sidewalk that edged the road.

He held onto the slatted concrete railing with his left hand for balance; his right was sunk deep into the pocket of his faded jeans, fingers wrapped around a scrap of paper. He caressed the worn creases where the paper had begun to thin. There were days when that note was the only thing that kept him going. Other days, that note drove him deeper into his madness. But like an addict seeking his fix, he had read the note every morning since the day Rachel had left it for him.

Went for a jog. Be back soon. I love you.

The words rolled around in his mind.

Be back soon.

She had spoken those three words to him once before, and she had fulfilled her promise. North Carolina. Cottage in the mountains. Their wedding day...

***

“Mmmm. Smell that?” Rachel Northman wrapped an arm around his waist and inhaled a deep breath as they stood outside their rented cottage in Maggie Valley, North Carolina.

He turned away from the fiery sunset illuminating the valley below and looked down at the woman who had become his bride just five hours earlier. Her hair spilled down her shoulders in an alluring cascade of auburn waves. Those wide, expressive eyes that had pierced his soul the day they first met now revealed a depth of love he never thought possible. The sunset had nothing on her.

“Sure do. It’s the purest country air this side of the Carolina border, Mrs. Northman.”

“Mrs. Northman,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Rachel Madeline Northman. I don’t know, Grant. Rachel Pennington always had a nice ring to it.”

“That so? Maybe I should take your last name instead. Mr. Grant Pennington...nope, doesn’t work. Afraid you’re stuck with Mrs. Northman.”

Her hand darted to his side, locating his one vulnerable ticklish spot. He doubled over, shouting in protest, then whirled around to exact revenge. But she always had been the more athletic one; eluding his grasp with a deft spin, she joined him in a fit of laughter that didn’t let up for three solid minutes.

Eventually they fell into an easy silence and settled down next to each other on the grass. Twilight draped them in a mixture of pink and gold as they sat on their little mountainside, surrounded by the rounded peaks of the Smoky Mountains. She rested her head on his shoulder and laced her fingers through his.

Every ounce of him yearned to live in this moment for the rest of eternity. He almost reached to stop her when she rose a minute later, jogging towards a trail they had discovered earlier at the edge of the woods behind their cottage.

“Why don’t you get the steaks started," she called over her shoulder. “I’ll go pick some Queen Anne’s Lace. We can stick them in that gorgeous crystal vase the Jacksons gave us. Be back soon!”

She had kept her promise that day, returning to him half an hour later with an armful of flowers. They continued an evening that made every previous evening of his life seem utterly insignificant. On that day, he was invincible. Life was one endless possibility, brimming with promises of sunsets and kisses, children and laughter.

***

Be back soon.

He dragged a shaky hand over the stubble that blanketed his jaw as he made his way unsteadily up the bridge. Rachel used to get irritated at his obsessive neatness; she’d barely recognize him now. His dark hair was matted and skewed, and the old paint-spattered tee shirt he wore should have been thrown out months ago. A string of sleepless nights had drawn dark half-moons under eyes that looked much older than the twenty-seven years they had seen.

Lifting his gaze from the sidewalk, he saw the outline of the emergency telephone station just ahead. It was one of many installed at regular intervals along the walkways of the bridge. The police officer had probably used one - maybe that very one - to call him. His feet pressed forward of their own accord, while his mind thrust him back to the one day he most wanted to forget…

***

He was spearing a forkful of sausage and scrambled eggs when the phone call came. They’d just moved to San Francisco, and Rachel had been looking forward to her first jog up the Golden Gate Bridge all week long. Part of him wished he had made himself get out of bed to join her. The other part was too busy enjoying this unexpected bounty of food she had set out for him. He touched the note she had left beside his breakfast. They’d been married three months, and it was still amazing to him that she was actually his. Pushing his chair back, he wiped his fingers on a crumpled napkin and walked over to the phone.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Northman?”

He cradled the phone between his head and shoulder. “Speaking. How can I help you?”

“This is Officer Katherine Sayer, with the San Francisco Police Department. I am very sorry to inform you that your wife has been in an accident.”

Her words hung in the silence. His heart lifted into his throat, a rush of thoughts jumbling together in his mind. The officer was wrong. Rachel was always very careful. She had been lying next to him in bed just forty-five minutes ago. He gripped the phone with both hands.

“What do you mean? Is Rachel okay? Oh please…”

“Sir, about thirty minutes ago there was an accident on the Golden Gate Bridge. A vehicle ran into the guard rail and struck your wife as she was jogging.” The officer paused, her professional tone succumbing to quiet sympathy. “She didn’t make it, Mr. Northman.”

***

The crack of the phone striking the floor exploded in his memory, jarring him back to the present. He stopped walking and blinked away the vestiges of that moment from his mind’s eye. Damp tendrils of fog brushed against his face as he rested both hands on the waist-high railing.

Why couldn’t she have left for her jog five minutes later that day? Why couldn’t he have decided to go with her, taken the brunt of that accident for her? He would have gladly died in her place that day. But instead he was left here to suffocate, the life-sustaining oxygen to his soul withdrawn when she died.

He stared at his feet. Such a simple thing, to jump. He had spent countless summer days at the playground jumping from a swing as a kid. He could still feel that exhilarating rush of freedom, breaking the confines of gravity for a few brief moments as he hurtled through the air. This would be just another jump, like the ones from the swing. Only this one would bring him the ultimate freedom.

He shifted his weight forward, summoning his courage. Just lift one foot up, then the other...

A slight flicker of movement caught the edge of his vision. A young woman drew close to the railing several yards away, her eyes focused on a single red rose held between both hands. Exhaling in frustration, he lowered his heels back to the pavement.

She seemed oblivious to his presence, standing motionless in spite of a breeze that pushed strands of shoulder-length blond hair across her face. He continued to watch her, growing more curious the longer she stayed in this silent trance. Several minutes passed before she abruptly lifted her head towards the sky. He looked up too. There was nothing that would have attracted her attention. Then he noticed her lips moving. Was she praying?

He remembered the last time he had prayed. He had yelled and cursed for twenty minutes, demanding to know why Rachel was stolen from him. Was this how God repaid the faithful? She had loved God and church and all those religious things in a way he had never understood. She’d tried to interest him in her spirituality, but he would always brush her off. If anyone had deserved to die, it was him.

The woman finished her prayer and slowly held the rose out over the railing. She hesitated a moment, then released her grip on the flower. The long green stem and crimson petals were instantly swallowed up by billowing mounds of gray fog. She looked down at the path the rose had taken for a few moments, and finally turned to leave.

By the time he realized he was still staring at her, it was too late. She met his gaze and responded with a self-conscious smile as she walked towards him. He breathed a curse, turning back to the water, desperately wishing she hadn’t seen him.

“So…I guess you saw my little ceremony.”

He reluctantly tilted his head in her direction. She was slender in an athletic sort of way, and her wavy hair fell in tousled disarray onto her shoulders. Her blue-green eyes held a hint of embarrassment. He looked away again.

“Didn’t mean to intrude,” he said, more self-chastisement than apology.

“No, not at all. That was just – I was kind of holding my own personal memorial service.”

He remained silent, fixing his eyes on the fog in front of him. Surely she could take a hint.

“Yeah…” She absently traced a crack in the sidewalk with her shoe. “You could say I was remembering a difficult time in my life. Anyway, I’m Dara.”

His eyes shifted from the smile that lit her face to the delicate hand she held out. A fresh wave of bitterness swelled up inside of him. This woman echoed Rachel’s gregarious warmth, taunting him in his agony.

“This really isn’t a good time for us to talk, Dara.”

She lowered her hand, eyes wide as she took in his haggard appearance for the first time.

“You…are you about to…”

”Jump?” He squeezed the railing with both hands, channeling his resentment until his knuckles went white. “What reason would I have to jump? My wife died last year, three months after we were married. No biggie.”

He expected her to panic. Instead she put a hand on his shoulder. Her pleasant expression had disintegrated, replaced by a world-weariness that was incongruous with her youthful features.

“It’s devastating to lose someone close,” she said. “You can’t handle something like that on your own.”

“And who is supposed to help me handle it? My parents? Their idea of helping me was a Hallmark condolence card and a five minute phone call from their New York penthouse.”

“Your answer isn’t down there,” she said, pointing towards the water.

“Don’t give me that crap! You have no idea…”

Silent heaves wracked his body. A year’s worth of pent-up tears finally erupted, etching twin paths down his cheeks. He was spent. There was nothing left to give. He slowly lifted one leg over the top of the railing, touching it down on the narrow ledge on the other side so that he straddled the concrete fixture. He began to swing the other leg over the rail, but she blocked it with both hands.

”I jumped from this bridge a year ago,” she said, eyes flashing with intensity. “All I am asking is that you hear what I have to say before you make the same decision.”

He froze at this revelation. She had his full attention.

“Please, will you just tell me your name?”

“Grant.” He could barely choke the word out.

”Grant, listen to me. I came here to thank God for everything He's done for me since the day that I jumped. I want to tell you my story, but I want you to come back over to the sidewalk first.”

He wasn't sure how anyone who had jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge could be standing there talking to him. But one thing was for certain – her eyes were locked on his with the same single-minded focus she had shown the rose earlier.

He hesitated, straddling the fence between life and death, wondering if there was anything she could really say that would offer hope. He looked down through a break in the fog at the tiny white wave crests streaking across the surface of the sea. He looked back at her, struck by the searing compassion in her eyes. There was something in her voice, something in her expression that was tugging him back from the edge. He gripped the rail for support and carefully brought the other leg back over to safety.

“Let’s sit,” she said as she sank down and crossed her legs Indian-style in the middle of the sidewalk.

He followed suit, swiping his tear-stained cheeks with the back of a hand. He inhaled a shuddering breath and tried to clear his mind.

“She was jogging on this bridge a year ago today when it happened,” he said, staring blankly at a wave of traffic streaking by. “A car ran off the road, right up onto the sidewalk, and hit her.”

He fell silent. She rested a hand on his knee.

“She left me this the morning she died.” He pulled the note out of his pocket and showed it to her. “Rachel was my life. Living just seems pointless now.”

Dara nodded. “I know. It’s like having the ground yanked out from under you. I was married once too. My husband didn’t die, though.”

Her voice cracked. She took another breath and plunged ahead.

“We’d been happily married – or so I thought – for four years, and then one morning he was gone. He called me two days later to tell me he’d met someone while he was on a business trip. He wanted a divorce.”

She ran a hand through her disheveled hair. Her voice was shaking, yet he sensed an underlying current of strength.

“I decided I must not have been a good enough wife or he wouldn’t have looked somewhere else. I had no husband, no direction, no emotional strength to endure a divorce. I wanted to die.”

“So you jumped off this bridge.”

“A year ago today. But the instant I started to fall, I realized how much I wanted to live. Except it was too late. I couldn’t take back what I had done. I had just enough time to scream, ‘God, help me’ before I hit the water and blacked out.”

“Did somebody find you?”

“There was a Coast Guard boat nearby when I jumped. They saw me hit the water and got me out. If they hadn’t rushed me to the hospital right away I wouldn’t have survived.”

She paused, her mouth curling into a smile.

“My first visitor was the man who jumped into the water after me. And you know what he told me?”

Grant shook his head.

“He said, ‘God has a purpose for your life’. Then he invited me to visit his church. I figured I owed God that much, so a couple weeks later I went to church for the first time since I was a kid.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. My life has totally changed in the last year."

She searched his face, and he could feel her empathy.

"I stopped believing in coincidences the day I survived the jump. You know, I almost didn't come here today. But here I am. Here you are. I think it's my turn to tell you that God has a purpose for your life, Grant."

He narrowed his eyes, struggling to process it all.

“My wife was very religious. She always talked about Jesus and faith and all that. How could God do this to someone like her?"

"I don't know the answer to that," she said. "But I do know that your wife is in heaven right now, with a God who loves us in a way no one else can. He has a much better view of the whole picture than we ever will."

”Can He help me let her go?”

“Without a doubt.” She stood up and reached out to him. “Let’s walk down this bridge together and talk about it some more.”

He clasped her hand and rose to his feet. She pointed to his balled fist.

“Why don’t you let that go first?”

“What do you mean?”

“Let the note fall into the water instead of you. It’s time to move on.”

He wanted to scream in protest. These were Rachel’s final words to him. His last connection to her. But Dara was right – he would remain chained to the past as long as he kept that note.

He faced the rail again and exhaled a forceful breath. She stood back while he held his trembling fist out over the water. Could he do this? He closed his eyes tightly, his insides churning. Yes he could. He had to. Gritting his teeth, he released the scrap of paper.

When he opened his eyes again he realized the fog had dissipated. The paper twisted and fluttered as it descended towards the shimmering water of the San Francisco Bay below. It swooped first in one direction, then another, dancing in celebration of its newfound freedom.

Dara came up next to him and they watched until the note became a tiny white dot in the distance. He looked over at her in astonishment. The pain was still there, but something was different.

It was the noose. It had come undone.