The morning air was crisp as expected in a high desert in late fall. Chelle kept a water bottle strapped to the belt on her side and a second in her hand. Goose bumps raised the hairs along her aging arms, even as the morning sun warmed her tired shoulders. Deceptive. The high desert was a great deceiver known to catch the ignorant unawares. Even with her waning senses, Chelle could already smell the pungent sagebrush as the coolness of morning dissipated before the rising sun. The afternoon would be a warm one for this time of year. But even the scorching heat would melt away at dusk. Chelle always kept a jacket for nightfall no matter how hot the day.

“Go back,” Chelle had stubbornly insisted as her son drove her home from church last night.

“Absolutely not,” James said, even as he made a U-turn at the next light. Though he continued to give arguments as to reasons why he should not, James knew if he didn’t do as his mother said, he would never hear the end of it for the next month. Or the next year.

Chelle’s dimming eyes may not see well enough in the dark to drive herself home, yet she had no trouble spotting the young woman shivering at the bus stop just past the church. “We’ll give her a ride home. She won’t be alarmed with me in the car.”

James pressed his lips together, deciding to keep his dissenting statements in his head this time.

True to her assertive nature, Chelle managed to coax the woman into the car. She knew that chiding her for not carrying a jacket wouldn’t be well received. The young must learn their own way.

“This is Tammy.” Chelle smiled as she nodded toward the back seat once she settled back in the car.

“Hi,” James said, embarrassment written across his face.

“Hello.” Tammie nervously played with her hands.

Chelle was too old to be embarrassed and much too old to waste time worrying what others thought of her. She had only a little time to impart wisdom to the next generation, and they had no time nor care to listen. They saw her as stubborn, mind wandering. Chelle knew better than they how she struggled to recall quickly the thoughts she had once formulated so well. It was easier for Chelle to put thoughts on paper, alone, when she could take her time. Focus. With others, she reverted to comfortable conversations of her earlier days, so well implanted in her mind that she could not forget. So Tammy got a history of this little town whether she wanted it or not. Then as she opened the door after the car pulled up to her house, Chelle handed her a tract and invited her to church next Sunday.

James shook his head as they drove off as if to say, “She’ll not come.” Chelle pretended not to notice.

Chelle frowned as she thought of James. She sat in the shade of a lone juniper to escape the autumn sun. She only had a little time before she had to begin the long walk home and prepare for lunch. So little time. How long the nights had seemed when James fussed through them as a colicky baby. How long the days when Chelle ran on little sleep and too much caffeine as James bounced off the furniture, yelling and waking his baby sister. Then how short the weeks grew as Chelle struggled to keep up with piling laundry, dirty dishes, James’s demands for help with his homework, Emma talking a mile-a-minute about a fight she had with her best friend, and Logan’s missing shoe. Why hadn’t she slowed down? Stopped. Listened. The work could wait, but growing children don’t. Before long they are gone. You didn’t listen to them, and now they aren’t listening to you. Chelle hoped it wasn’t too late.

Chelle pulled her notebook out of the small pack, still trying to catch her breath from the walk over. James wanted her to sell the house and move into town. He even went so far as to drive her around to a few homes and apartments he thought she should consider. But Chelle preferred the country.

“Anything could happen to you out here,” James argued during his visit Sunday afternoon. “It’d be thirty minutes before anyone could get to you. At least consider taking your cell on those walks of yours.”

“They aren’t just walks, son. They’re times of stillness and meditation. A time when my heart communes with God. A phone would be a distraction.” Chelle raised her hand as James tried to interrupt. “I know you’re only looking out for me, but I’d rather live my last days in peace and freedom than extend my life in a prison. Even someone my age needs a little adventure. I’ll bring my walking stick in case I have to fight off a coyote.” Chelle gave a mischievous wink.

James rolled his eyes. “The town isn’t a prison. If you would just consider—”

Chelle stood. “Making another pot of coffee? Of course.”       

A small victory, but one Chelle knew was only temporary. James would bring it up again, probably at lunch today. Chelle cracked open her timeworn notebook filled with her most intimate thoughts and prayers, favorite scriptures, and a few poems she had scrawled during days just like this. A lizard perched on the juniper trunk watching her. A raven cawed above her, and an invisible ground squirrel chirped from a sagebrush. Yes, the desert was deceptive. Many people only saw the cracked thirsty ground, the brown stubby grass, thorns, and heat waves shimmering in the distance. Where others saw death, Chelle soaked in the abundant life—if you were still enough, quiet enough, you would witness the thriving life from the tiny ants marching toward their promised land to a vulture soaring high above, from the outstretched arms of a Joshua tree to the tiny flower blooming in the juniper’s shadow. Chelle smiled at the little orange blossom. It didn’t worry that the afternoon sun would surely kill its glory, but rejoiced in the time it was given, however short. Time too was deceptive.

Chelle took her pen and wrote her thoughts in one of the last available pages. She stretched her left arm and flexed her fingers. A distant rumble caused Chelle to smile as a swift gust threatened to tear the pages from her hand. Chelle wasn’t afraid of the looming storm; the desert needed the rain. James would chide her of course, but the afternoon would not be so hot after all. Relief was on the way. Hopefully. Chelle had lived in the desert long enough to know that dark clouds were also deceptive, promising rain that never comes. Other times it dropped its life giving liquid in one small area while teasing the rest of the desert with wind bearing only the tantalizing smell of rain. Nothing was guaranteed in this life. Time least of all.

“For what is your life? It is even a vapour,” Chelle quoted softly to the lizard, who blinked and scurried away.

Chelle had heard a sermon once on this passage and it terrified her—the uncertainness of time. But not anymore. Her pen wavered in her hand, and she gave a short gasp. Pain filled her chest even as peace filled her heart. It was such a long walk home she thought, but she didn’t have to go alone. Chelle smiled and held out her hand.