Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace Read Online Free

once a week, and I’ll adjust it. Really, injuries like this are pretty common among my athletes.”
    “I’m not an athlete.” I shifted my 150-pound body on his table and rested my arms on my forties paunch.
    “You’re walking fifteen miles a day for thirty-four days?”
    I nodded.
    “You’re an athlete. Now, let’s take a crack at that ankle.”
    I pressed my face into the table and breathed through bone grinding on bone. Nobody ever called me an athlete.
    Except Dad.
    My father made an effort to change my mind about my athletic abilities sometime in my sixteenth year. When Mom bought a badminton set, Dad was the only person I wanted to play. Our birdies didn’t flutter. They zoomed back and forth across the net. I stood in the Southern twilight, scratching mosquito bites, oblivious to everything but the thrill of beating my father at a game that required true athletic skill.
    I always thought badminton gifted me with some coordination, but maybe Dad helped me find what already existed within myself.
    I blinked into the steamy Mississippi morning. Why was I thinking about badminton when I had a book to launch? Four hundred and forty-four miles to walk?
    Because walking across three states in thirty-four days required another level of grit.
    Several other levels.
    Maybe an entire quarry.
    I unfolded a map of the Natchez Trace Parkway. Its twelve sections reached the windshield when I opened it flat. Air from the vent mimicked ripples in the landscape. A bold line of highway snaked north, with eastward turns south of Jackson and near the Alabama state line. Meriwether Lewis stared at me, near the fold at the top of the third section, acknowledging my pilgrimage to his grave. An average of three days per section.
    Eternity yawned before me. At the beginning of any project, I always struggled to partition it into sections. I crumpled the map and threw it in the back seat. If I finished, would anybody care enough to read my novel?
    “We’re here.” Alice steered us into a pull-off. We stared at two stone pillars bisected by a wooden sign.
    Natchez Trace Parkway . Brown and yellow. Green and white.
    The beginning of everything.
    “Well.” I gripped the armrest to combat dizziness. Blood bansheed through my ears. But when I looked at Alice, I smiled. One of those fake smiles, like Mom and I always used when we wanted to pretend everything was fine.
    Because everything was fine.
    Really.
    I dragged my eyes back to the window. “If you just take a couple of pictures of me in front of that sign, I can get started.”
    Green eyes blurred with every heartbeat as I trudged to my first marker. Four hundred and forty-four miles was a long way to walk. Doubt gripped my insides, choked my ribcage, rebelled against air, but when I turned, I struck my usual pose: Mouth yawning open in a round O. Black pants. Gray shirt. Eyes wide. My toddler smile.
    For most of my life, faces masked truth. In that instant, I wanted to take refuge in the car and drive home. Back to Michael. To failed normalcy. I didn’t know what I would do with my life, but I couldn’t imagine anyone reading my words or caring about my walk. I couldn’t fathom making a wage from the written word. I could get a job at Starbucks and stop my nonsense, my draining of our household in a pursuit of a stupid dream. I—
    “I think these will work.” Alice returned my phone.
    For a second, I wavered between jumping and not jumping, between the first step and total flight. When I saw the trust on Alice’s face, I stood a little taller, banished doubt and took my phone. “I’m sure they will, but just in case…..” I scrolled through them. “I guess I should post one, right? Let everybody know I’ve started?”
    “Yeah.” Alice waited while I played with my phone, fighting to see the world through screens when experience magnified layers. Cemented memories.
    “Okay. This one. Done.” My mouth its widest. Fingers splayed. Me at my silliest.
    Silence