The Anatomy of Peace

This book hits very close to home and has provided a lot of self-reflection since I started reading it. The highlight for me, so far, is a story told about 50 pages in:

Lou had grown up in Athens, New York, a picturesque town located on the Hudson River 120 miles north of Manhattan and 30 miles south of Albany. His father was an apple farmer who worked around the clock seven days a week to eke out a meager living. They lived in a Civil War-era white clapboard farmhouse that sat only fifty yard off the west bank of the Hudson. Their farm was a rather modest ten acres, but it was the prettiest parcel in Greene County, occupying a peninsula that jutted out into the Hudson. From the top floor of the farmhouse, one could see the Catskill Mountains rising above the trees to the west. The setting was so beautiful that Lou's father could never bring himself to leave, even though he could have run a far grander operation elsewhere.

Through Lou's youth, the family had owned only one vehicle-a red 1942 farm truck with a matching red four-foot-tall wooden bay on the flatbed. The truck rattled and coughed like a ninety-year-old chain-smoker. Lou grew up thinking that the shoulder of the road was merely a second lane, as his father nearly always hugged the grasses that lined the streets in order to let other vehicles pass.

It was no small thing, then, when the Herberts purchased a new car. Lou was sixteen at the time, and he was eager to show the car to his friends in town. The day after his father brought it home, Lou asked if he could take it for some errands. Sensing his son's excitement, Lou's father readily agreed.

Lou ran out to the driveway and started it up. The low hum of the engine exhilarated him and he stroked the dash in anticipation. Just then he remembered he had left his wallet in the house and ran in to get it. When he raced back out, to his horror, the car had vanished! Lou remembered his feeling of panic, and then the awful thought that the car might have rolled down the slope of the approach and spilled off the driveway adn into the Hudson.

Didn't I put it back in park? Lou had screamed in his mind as he ran down the drive. Didn't I set the brake?

Where the lane turned, sure enough, fresh tire tracks headed down the hill toward the river. Lou sprinted to the edge of the bluff and looked some twenty feet down. There looking back at him were the headlights of his father's car. He stood frozen as the water slowly sucked the car under the surface and out of sight.

Lou remembered walking numbly up to the house, wondering how he could break the news to his father. He entered the farmhouse and saw his father facing away from him in his favorite wingback chair. He was reading the newspaper. For a moment, Lou considered quietly exiting, and his mind raced with thoughts of running away.

"Forget something else?" his father had asked without turning around.

"No," Lou had responded, feeling cornered. There was no avoiding it now, as his father knew he was in the house. There was nowhere to hide.

"Dad," he had said, his voice breaking. "I-" He couldn't go on. "I-"

He gasped for air and the courage to tell what happened.

"Dad, I - the car - " he stammered as his chest heaved between words. "I think I must have forgotten to set the brake," he blurted. "It's in the river, Dad. The car is in the river! I'm so sorry," he said, bursting into sobs. "I'm so sorry!"

What happened next seared itself so deeply into Lou's memory he was sure that should he ever get Alzheimer's or some similar disease, this would be the last memory to leave him.

He remembered trembling while waiting for his father to respond. His father didn't turn to him but still sat holding the newspaper wide before him. He then slowly reached his left hand to the top corner of the right-hand page and turned it to continue reading. And then he said it, the sentence Lou would never forget. He said, "Well, I guess you'll have to take the truck then."