Brother, brother

The root-strewn footpath snakes up through a canopy of young trees, meandering along a stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The cyclists below downshift through their gears. My Lab runs ahead, tail turning like a flywheel. This ridge trail is my new favorite escape route: a five-minute drive from my front door, a good trek up steep switchbacks to the ridge top. I could hike all the way to Mt. Mitchell but will turn around after an hour or so. There’s been little to no humidity this week, so sweat doesn’t break until halfway out, when the day’s concerns buzz the loudest, like the mosquitoes that swarmed all summer but have now disappeared with the colder weather.

My brother called the other night, his voice rife with hurt and worry. After years of strife, he and his wife are getting divorced. It’s been coming for a while, so no big surprise to hear Bill announce it. Still, I know he’s scared of what this will mean for his kids, worried what he’s going to put them through by splitting up. Our parents divorced when we were young, and we spent much of our childhood shuttling back and forth between them. Indeed, my brother sounded like a young boy on the phone, as if afflicted by an old childhood hurt. His usual confident, rich voice cracked a little, wavering thin at the edges — this call being a way for him to climb back out of the ditch of fear he’d fallen into. 

There’s a bend in the trail up near the ridgeline articulated by an S-curve of old stones. Passing out of a rhododendron thicket’s damp shade, I step into a bath of sunlight. I can make out the car hum below and a patch of deep-blue autumn sky through the trees, but that’s all. 

Close to the ridge top now, I approach my favorite corridor of oak-lined path that floats and sways over the cove like an enormous rope bridge. There’s always a light breeze shimmering up here, light falling in dapple across these old mountains’ shoulders. My footfalls are slow, and my breath sinks down into a deeper rhythm. It’s why I come here. A breeze riffles the leaves. Perfect fall weather, no one out on the trail. But although I have walked myself to this incredible vantage, I am unable to see past my own worries. I can only think of my brother’s voice as he got off the phone. How sad and tired he seemed. There was nothing left to say. 

I feel sad; hurt by my brother’s hurt. But as I sit and look over the valley, the sweat cooling on my skin, I imagine my brother’s life coming alive, and try to picture the ways Bill will come out of his tailspin. I keep a lookout for the hawks I know migrate through here about this time, passing over mountain gaps in motorcycle-rally formation. Just over the ridge, I know, lies downtown Asheville’s bar graph of brick buildings; but all I can see is an edge of the mall and flashings from Highway 40. I need to keep moving. As if on cue, the sun comes out from behind a bank of clouds, throwing a net of speckled light across the ridge. 

I stand up and brush dirt from my pants, taking one last look down into the valley. The trees are beginning their autumnal turn, a few weeks late due to this season’s drought. The whole region is hoping for rain. Back on the trail, my mind shuts off and the river current’s breeze wakes me up to my body’s outposts. When the sun falls back again, and the breeze pulses low, a new line of sweat forms at the nape of my neck. I make it to the spot where the trail swerves and dips off the ridge. Dog at my side, tongue lolling, I walk forward, observant, breath in tune with my steps. I am aflame with love—for my life, for my brother, for the glorious day, for this trail at my feet.

Sebastian Matthews is the co-editor of Rivendell and son of the well-known poet William Matthews. He is the author of a poetry collection We Generous and Memoir In My Father’s Footsteps. He teaches at Warren Wilson college.