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| Sometimes things happen to bring people closer for other reasons altogether. ——Christopher John Campbell I was seven when Jane Chaddock Davenport reached ninety. She was my great-grandmother, a beautiful woman with large violet eyes, exquisitely groomed white hair, and magnificent hands, veined and transparent, which she enhanced with antique rings. She gave me one, an oblong1) purple amethyst2) set in heavy gold, which I love more as I get older. She wore brocade3) dresses with lace petticoats4). The shoes on her little feet always matched the satin5) hair bands. She liked to talk to me. I loved to listen. She told me many things, once about a love affair she had years earlier “on the edge of the Grand Canyon.” She explained that she was much younger then—only seventy-four. “On the very edge,” she repeated in her crystal yet most-soft voice. “It was very romantic. I looked straight down the canyon walls—a thousand miles below. We were passionate then and unafraid, being young.” At the time, I had no idea what she was talking about. I only imagined my exquisite and delicate great-mother in passionate embrace with a mysterious stranger on the very rim of the Grand Canyon, while a sunset of glorious oranges and golds spread across a darkening vastness. Holding hands, they dangled their feet over the edge, rapt6) in beauty. Many years later, my husband Alex and I were on our honeymoon, driving across the West. Late one afternoon, we found ourselves at the entrance to Grand Canyon National Park, and we decided to stay the night. We followed the signs to the central complex, where a new hotel blazed in the center of what seemed to be a parking lot. Newly arriving travelers, all with reservations, crowded the lobby. The hurried man at the desk was sorry, but there were no more rooms. “I know that hotels always have an extra room for an emergency,” Alex insisted. “Say a VIP arrives unexpectedly. Give us that room and we’ll pay for it.” Alex was in no mood to drive any farther. “Sir, we would give you a proper room if we had one. But we have only one room left, one we never rent anymore. It is in the Old Inn, and people don’t like it, so we don’t bother to show it.” “Sounds perfect,” Alex said. A bellboy7) called ahead and then, gathering our bags, led us to the Old Inn. We followed him through its lovely old lobby and then down the corridors to the back of the building. We finally arrived at our room, its dimensions worthy of the Grand Canyon. The bedroom was the size of a ballroom, and the bathroom was as big as your run-of-the-mill8) living room. The tub itself was about seven feet long and four deep. Everything was ready for us by the time we got there: large towels in the bathroom, bed turned down9), curtains pulled. A fire had been lit and was burning cheerfully. The room was large but had a cozy feel to it: natural wood, green-and-white chintz10) and an antique silver mirror over the dressing table. “Nothing wrong with this,” I said. |
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