Page 1 of The Finish Line

Prologue

Tobias

Age Forty-Four

Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France

“Viens ici, Ezekiel.” Come here, Ezekiel. I walk over to where he stands, his hand lowered, a round, brown seashell with a flat bottom resting in his palm. When I go to take it, he moves it out of reach.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est?” What is it?

“Un clypéastre, un dollar de sable. Lorsque tu en trouveras un, garde-le. Et lorsque tu seras prêt, alors tu le casseras. Mais tu dois le faire bien au milieu pour pouvoir en récupérer son trésor.” A dollar of sand. When you find this, you keep it. And only when you’re ready, do you break it. But you have to do it right down the middle to claim the treasure.

“Quand serai-je prêt?” When will I be ready?

He ruffles my hair. “Tu le sauras.” You’ll know.

*

Standing on the shoreline, I skip rocks along the foamed waves flooding in at my feet. I never recalled the whole conversation from that day my father brought me here, only the look of the sea, a glimpse of sand, the flash of early sun peaking behind him, and the strange shell in his palm. It was on my last visit to the institution that he recalled our discussion verbatim during one of his rare and lucid moments. He told me the story of his son, Ezekiel, and repeated our exchange that day with surprising clarity just minutes before he asked me to search for him.

Whether it was a sign, or fate, or something else playing a factor, I’d found a sand dollar on the beach in pristine condition the day I’d broken ground on the house. Though he didn’t jog my memory until years after, the why of what had drawn me to keep it when I’d found it was made clear. Somehow, without knowing the details, I’d known the significance of it.

It’s ironic and cruel how the mind works, mine especially. Some memories I re-live regularly but would do anything to forget, the details so vivid, so ingrained, it can be torturous. While others, the memories I hold most dear, at times evade me. But it’s my fickle memory that planted a seed that day and instinct that had me hiding that shell—that makes it all the more meaningful. And it wasn’t until I looked up the significance of the “treasure” that I understood his state of mind that day, a state very much like my own mindset now.

We were never close due to my mother fleeing from him because of his temper and mental illness—a diagnosed schizophrenic—but I feel some connection to him now. However, I’ve been fearful since the day I found him decades later, covered in his own shit and rambling frantic French at any stranger who passed him on that street in Paris. Seeing him in that state gave way to trepidation that one day I would suffer the same fate—that everyone who claimed to care for me would eventually abandon me—due to mental illness and lack of control. A fear that crippled me for years and kept me from investing, in believing in people fully.

To me, love was always conditional—until her.

My mother never fully understood the extent of my father’s illness. It’s my belief now that she assumed he’d just gone mad. Although that’s partly true, it wasn’t by conscious decision. It wasn’t as if he’d let some dark side of him take over, which I believe was her stance on him up until the day she died. It was sickness that claimed him and the fear of inherited sickness that’s plagued me for so long.

But at this stage in the game, the odds and my age are in my favor that I will never suffer his fate.

Retrieving the sun-bleached stone from where I hid it a lifetime ago, I start toward the winding cliff-side staircase that leads to my finish line. It’s more apparent than ever that it was never the house I was waiting for. It was today, this moment of clarity—a day where my head and heart are no longer at odds.

If I had to sum up my life, my journey, in one word, it would be today. I did it all for this moment. The irony is, I never knew through my plotting and scheming a day like this could exist for me. Fate threw me the cards while Karma had its wicked way with me. Luck was never factored in, but it came through for this opportunist enough to know that at times, it was present, and others it had abandoned me completely.

Noted, luck. And fuck you for it.

But if I have to measure my life against the uncontrollable powers of what could be, at any time, for or against me, I’ll have to bat them all away. I’ll have to choose something else to measure my life by, a different entity all together, a cosmic force to trump all others: her.

Without her, my purpose would feel meaningless, as would this day.

Because she wasn’t wrong. We, what we have and what we found in each other, is all that matters. The path I traveled to get here would amount to nothing without someone to reflect on it with. And there’s no better storyteller, no better reflection of my worth, than in the eyes of the woman who shared in my journey and helped me navigate my way through the worst of it.

She’s my mirror, my judge, and has revealed herself as my sole purpose. She brought direction back to my deadening soul when I lost my way, and she continues to guide me back, a star too bright to ignore, no matter how far I stray.

There’s no more strength in life than a man’s purpose. For so many years, I thought mine was something else entirely—until she showed me the truth. I always considered myself a lone traveler until she blazed her way onto my path as my opponent, lover, teacher, confidante, and best friend.

Any significant sum of every day I’ve spent on this Earth will always amount to her.

If I had succeeded in throwing my purpose away, if I were successful at self-sabotage, I wouldn’t know such a complete feeling existed. I would have never found such peace inside myself. The panic would have seized me long ago and made me sick to the point of no return.

The minute I step through the door of the house, I won’t ever look back on the cruelty of the path or how many steps I took alone. Instead, I’ll appreciate each bend of the journey, aside from a single blow so fucking merciless, I’ll never be able to shake it off. Not ever. A loss so painful, there won’t ever be a day it won’t hurt.

My brother.

Her savior.

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