Another excerpt from A Love Worth Fighting For: a run at North Norway, Maine

My law practice has, by now, slowed down. I showed up at the office once or twice a week. Carol and I made it up to our gentleman’s farm in the Oxford Hills at North Norway, Maine. Good for her—got her out of the house. A tonic for us both.

I ran the five-mile loop. The sun broke though the morning fog as I took small steps up the steep hills. At the top, a dirt road to the left winds around ninety degrees up to where my parents are buried. I jogged past silent, manicured pine woods, trimmed into a storyland full of sunshine on needles. At the crest, I said a prayer at my parents’ gravesite where you can almost see Norway Lake below. I ran down two miles of soft dirt road, glancing into deep, scented forests, kept focused on each foot fall, feeling relief from the heat inside cool shadows, hearing only my labored breathing. I ran fast to get back soon, but not too fast—if I conked out, she wouldn’t know how to find me and there was no cell reception up there. I looked and listened for sounds of deer as I climbed the long hill through acres of apple trees. I entered the steaming jungle trail, stepping on mossy rocks in a hushed forest that smelled of rot. Then through bracken and, careful, don’t slip on the wet rocks where there was a stream in spring, but not now, not in late summer. Be careful not to rouse the crazed dog, just there, where the dirt road resumes. Now I could breathe. A steep downhill to the corner and there, our neighbor Hillary. I yelled hello and we talked, as she, in her rubber boots, prepared to muck out her llama stalls. The sun hot on my back, I climbed the steep hill to a cool shower. Ah, the glory of it. Nothing better than the satisfaction of a long run on a late summer morning in Maine. Well worth the pain and the slow recovery that my age required.

Late that night, Carol made me tell her the story of Don and Hillary’s parrot again. I told her their gray parrot made it sound like Don had arrived home—mimicked the opening of the door, and Don’s voice, “Hello. Hill?” We laugh.

“Remember your parents had those lawn parties with croquet?” she asks.

“Yes, and gin and tonics at five sharp.”