5
After harnessing the girls in their car seats, Kate snapped her seat belt shut. William duplicated this ritual, and as he reached for his own seat belt he leaned over to kiss Kate. She kept him drawn toward her and kissed him for the longest time.
“Are we there yet?”
“I’m hungry.”
“I have to go to the bathroom.” Tara and Nicole burst into giggles at their rehearsed routine and their parents’ embrace.
Kate turned around in her seat and smiling said, “Hey, guys, you know how much Mummy loves Daddy? Well, today is his birthday, and he’s spending it with us!”
“Yeah!!!”
William pulled the car out of the parking space of the apartment complex that would be their neighborhood for the next year and a half. William’s out-of-town jobs would be harder to accept as the girls grew older and more reluctant to switch schools, but for now these extended “vacations” provided more important experiences.
Both Kate and William shared a passion for the outdoors and today they had decided to visit the Lauray Caverns.
”I wonder why it’s L-a-u-r-a-y Caverns and L-u-r-a-y city,” Kate mused as she flipped through a Virginia guide.
“I think it’s because they hadn’t invented spell-check when these places were first discovered. It’s like Mackinac Island and Mackinaw City in Michigan, both pronounced the same way even though they’re spelled differently.”
“You’re probably right, since it says here the caverns were discovered by settlers holding candles, not Palm Pilots. But, hey, here’s something the girls should enjoy. In 1954, the year Grandma was born, a man named Leland W. Sprinkle built the Great Stalacpipe Organ, the world’s largest musical instrument inside the caverns, using stalactite from the cave walls.”
“Cool, like in church? Can we play it?” Tara asked.
“I don’t know. Let me check.” Kate flipped through the pages. William glanced her way casually, and then abruptly interrupted her search with a pointed finger.
“There. Let’s go there instead.”
“But Hon, the Natural Bridge is a good distance from here, probably an hour at least. Don’t you want to visit the Lauray Caverns today?”
“No, we can do that another day. Let’s visit the Natural Bridge first. I really want to see why this landmark is one of the Seven Wonders of the World!”
“Well, it’s your birthday, so you get to choose. Let me check the map so I can figure out how to get there from here.”
Kate did not mind accommodating her husband’s sudden interest in prioritizing their visits of Virginia points of interest. As long as they spent a whole day together she would be content.
“Well, we’re already on US 33. If we go south instead of north at I-81, we’ll be on track.”
Kate refolded the map and returned her attention to the sight-seeing guide.
“Girls, it looks like you’ll have to see the cave organ another day. Daddy has a different treat in store. It’s a bridge that no one built. It’s just there. It’s as tall as Niagara Falls. Remember when we went there?”
“Cool, will there be wax museums and stuff?” Nicole asked excitedly.
William and Kate exchanged silent groans.
The car ride to the Natural Bridge was relaxing. William parked his mind in neutral, allowing it to pursue any train of thought influenced by the passing scenery. As they followed the road signs to their destination, they arrived at a setting that appeared to be a small town square, with big city intersections. This center was the gateway to the Natural Bridge and filled with all the tourist traps, wax museums included, that brought squeals of excitement from the girls.
The weather could not have been any more pleasant. A bright sun hung in a perfect clear sky with a soft breeze keeping the family cool. Unaware of the method of entrance to visit the Natural Bridge, William and Kate were caught off guard when they realized that access to the bridge could only be gained by first paying an admission fee in the main building.
“Could you imagine arriving at Niagara Falls or Mount Rushmore only to find the main site is shielded by a building, and to see it you must pay an admission first?”
Kate smiled in agreement but moved forward in line to purchase the admission tickets. They joined a crowd on the short walk to a waiting shuttle bus and boarded. After a five-minute ride down a winding declining road, they disembarked at the entrance of a walkway leading to the bridge. They came upon a large pavilion that housed a snack bar, a covered patio and public washrooms. The area was crowded with visitors whose dialects and outward appearances gave away their origins.
As they approached the Natural Bridge, calmness fell over William. The area was a secluded gorge with steep high cliffs overlooking each side of a curving stream. The family moved in the direction of the bridge. The left side of the stream was still in its natural state, while the right side had been developed to handle the vast number of pedestrians who had also discovered this hidden site. William’s construction eye studied the stonework making up the barriers and pathways leading forward.
Whilst looking down, his concentration was interrupted by the awed gasps of adjacent tourists.
“Wow!…”
William looked up ever so slowly and as he did so, the site, a curved natural stone arch, came into sight. The Natural Bridge seemed larger than a twenty-story building, about half as wide as it was high, spanning the two banks of the canyon. The arch was mostly green covered with vegetation, the underside dark and shaded. Across the top there appeared to be a functioning paved roadway. A steel roadway railing and signposts were dotted across the top.
William was frozen in his tracks, his serious face glancing at Kate. She was twenty feet or so in front of him, holding one daughter in each hand and skipping toward the bridge. Beyond Kate a continuous chain of visitors crowded the pathway. Looking down, William viewed the sea of bodies as a single collage of moving colors.
The figures directly under the bridge reminded William of his childhood tiny soldier collection below his bedroom door archway. In his mind’s eye the pathway seemed to suddenly disappear. This brief mirage startled William, but he didn’t question its meaning.
He moved toward the bridge ever so slowly, almost stoically.
As he moved closer in this pensive trance, people around him momentarily stared, but his secluded focus was no match for the enormous sight before them. William was hearing the voices of his daughters and the comments of his wife. Kate, though, was unaware that William was only hearing and not comprehending anything around him.
William walked past his family, completely ignoring them. Kate was like most of the visitors around her, very involved with all of the sights and sounds of this place. Yet, William was no longer mentally aware of his actions.
To Kate, observing from a distance, her husband appeared to be in his usual studious appreciation of an engineered creation. She was distracted by Tara who tugged on her tee shirt. As she attended to Tara’s inquisitiveness, she realized that something was odd with William. He was approaching the center of the bridge still trance-like, ignoring people around him. Kate returned her attention toward William and became curious about his frozen stare at the underside of the bridge.
She saw him focusing on the droplets of water forming on the underside of the bridge and falling to the surface of the pathway below. As Kate came to within a few feet of William, she called to him. He did not respond. As she moved to touch him, Nicole, at her side, resisted moving forward. Kate dropped down and spoke to Tara in serious tones. William was now focusing on the origin of the droplets bombarding his shoulders, hair, forehead, cheeks and chin. His eyes closed momentarily, and as a droplet hit the bridge of his nose, his left eye opened to see a droplet just leaving the underside of the bridge.
His eye followed the individual droplet down, catching it head-on. William let out a scream that could be heard for only a split second. As the water droplet hit the surface of his open eye, a second droplet directly behind it found his open mouth and entered the center of his throat.
Kate had been occupied with a persistent daughter. As she explained to Tara the importance of holding onto her smaller sister while she checked on Daddy, she heard a horrific scream coming from William. A downpour of water met the turning of her head knocking her backward on her behind.
As Kate fell back, she heard Tara and Nicole scream, and she heard herself scream. Kate looked in amazement as water slammed to the ground. The quantity of water now splashing on her clothing and that of her daughters as well as the hard surface around her, equaled in volume to what a grown man the size of William would displace if fully immersed in a tub filled to its rim. A puddle of quickly dispersing water now lay where William stood only moments ago.
Kate looked up to the ceiling of the bridge. Shaking like a leaf, and her complexion white, she appeared to be chilled. Her vision and hearing now blurred, Kate fainted.