Online Journal - The Big Brick Review: Building on the narrative of our lives...brick by brick.

The Big Brick Review 2025 Essay Contest: 3rd Place ($100)

Building on the narrative of our lives...one brick at a time.

The Fourth Way

by Lee McAvoy

AUGUST 1978

WE'RE ON OUR way to Indian Echo Caverns, a Central Pennsylvania tourist attraction, twenty minutes from Harrisburg. I’m in the backseat of my oldest sister, Mary’s, 1978 Datsun B-210. Mary’s driving and my second oldest sister, Jill, sits next to her. Mary has been married and living in rural Pennsylvania for three years. Jill moved to a city apartment in Harrisburg a year ago. I’ve been living with Jill and her boyfriend, Dave, for one week.

The air conditioning is torqued up to high and every place on my body not covered by my terry jogging shorts and tank top is covered in goosebumps. It doesn’t occur to me to ask Mary to turn it down. She’s always self-assured and, since I’m often not, I stay quiet and watch her snap each gear into place as we cruise up and down steep hills.

My parents and teenage sisters, visiting from Upstate New York, are behind us in Dad’s Ford LTD. Dad’s new, oversized, beyond-our-means cars have come and gone as far back as I can remember. The long trips we take temporarily assuage our silent money worries, so that each car simultaneously frees and entraps us.

Two months ago, I’d graduated from a state college ten miles from home with degrees in Psychology and Elementary Education but had no luck landing a job. Understatement. In economically depressed St. Lawrence County, I couldn’t even get a foot in at McDonald’s.

“We’ll have to find Lee Ann another place to live right away,” Jill says. She turns toward me but doesn’t make eye contact.

“She’s here because you said she could live with you,” Mary says. Our eyes meet through her rearview mirror and the scrambled eggs in my stomach mix with dread. What the heck? I love Jill, but her sudden mood changes baffle me.

Mary glares at Jill so long that we veer onto the shoulder at a sharp turn. Rocks bounce off the side of the car, punctuating the anger in her voice.

“So, one minute you invite her to live with you and the next minute she can’t?” Mary’s full throttle into her take-charge mode and their voices escalate.

I turn around and fan my fingers like British Royalty. Debi and Michelle wave back. I make the peace sign with both hands. Debi and Michelle do the same. I pull underneath my eyes with my index fingers, grab the sides of my nose with my thumbs, and see them laughing.

The volume of the conversation is still high, so I look out the window at the countryside. A white sun shines through a haze of humidity so thick I can stare at it without squinting. More shades of green than I can count vibrate on the mountains. Light and shadow settle on grass and trees that move in a whisper, We belong here.

I think, Can I belong here?

I catch a fragment of Jill’s side of the conversation. Something about how much she and Dave have helped me in the few days I’ve lived with them. They gave me a car to drive. They helped me find a job.

These are valid points. The previous day I’d had a successful interview at a restaurant well known for its shrimp buffet, owned by a retired army colonel. Jill made good money there her first year in Pennsylvania and put in a word for me to the head waitress. In her mid-fifties with straight-lined, red-streaked lips, fringed bangs, and a beehive that matched her black uniform, Catherine was what they call a lifer in the restaurant business. I was afraid of her on sight but pulled off the interview.

I try to picture myself as a waitress but in every image of my future-self I am surrounded by books. Since a very young age, the written words of others have been a compass for my life’s pathways.

Could I work in a bookstore instead?

No, it’s too late. I’ve already purchased the black polyester dress with the white ruffles and the white vinyl shoes. I’m scheduled for the 4-11 PM shift. It’s a done deal. I’m in the zero-dollar zone and, without work, I’ll never make it to grad school.

Reading and thinking are my greatest comforts. When Dad sees me slumped over a book he says, “Get a job,” and “You can’t stay in school forever.” But when he notices my stash of books from college running low, he comes home from his job as a school custodian with stacks of novels from the lost and found by writers like JD Salinger, Jane Austin, and Richard Wright.

When we arrive at the cavern parking lot Debi, Michelle, and I gravitate together like lost specks of magnet dust, and the stress of the car ride floats away in the hot breeze. Our family joins a small cluster of tourists, and a guide passes out helmets, demonstrates how to flick on the headlamp, and leads us to the mouth of the cave.

I am stunned to see how many colors can live in darkness─every color I can imagine, plus muted shades of pink, green, and blue I’ve never seen. Each hanging rock is a separate frozen waterfall. Water droplets form on the tips and fall one by one in a slow, steady rhythm. Despite the damp chill, a warmth flows across my chest.

The tour guide turns to face us. Spikes of long, uncombed gray-brown hair poke out the sides and back of his helmet. “The cave decorations you see are called stalactites. Do not touch them. They are 10,000 to 20,000 years old and very delicate. Scientists estimate that they can grow only about an inch a century.”

I’m not so sure that we should be in this cave and wonder if all the people, however well-behaved, are harming it. I think of my favorite teacher, Edith Finnegan, who assigned books in our senior seminar history class like Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Black Like Me. She was the only teacher in my thousand resident, all-white town to teach her students about racism and sexism, sparking heated debates.

In honor of Mrs. Finnegan, I raise my hand and ask, “How did the cave get its name?”

A brief look of confusion crosses the guides face, as if no one has ever asked that question, but finally he says, “It’s believed that the first visitors to this cavern were the Susquehannock Indians.”

His answer doesn’t satisfy me. I want to hear stories about the Susquehannock people, but he turns and walks on before I can think of what to ask.

I swallow my curiosity, and something about the dampness on my skin reminds me of the cistern in my grandparents’ basement that shows up in my nightmares.

It will take ten years for me to disclose Grampy’s sexual abuse to Mom, Dad, and my sisters. And a lifetime for my sisters and me, all victims of our grandfather’s crimes, to grapple with how it affected us.

I motion to Debi and Michelle. When they join me at the back of the line, I look at them with crossed eyes and buck teeth and we laugh aloud. Everyone smiles good naturedly, making the cave feel more like a cocoon and less like a basement.

We head deeper into the darkness where the sound of dripping water cracks open the shell of silence.

Suddenly, living away from my younger sisters feels impossible. I think, If the three of us stayed together we could live anywhere.

It was Michelle I was most worried about. Debi would be off to college next year, leaving Michelle alone with my parents, who lost their good humor when Grampy, Dad’s father, reneged on a promise to sell him the family farm. After a lifetime of hard work and struggle to make ends meet, Dad quit farming and accepted a job as a school custodian.

“I wonder if when no one’s looking he picks off the sharp tips of rocks and glues them to his head to get that hairdo,” Michelle whispers.

We huddle together and talk softly. “Yeah, that looks wicked bad,” Debi says.

“I wonder how many years it took to form that nose of his,” I add.

Our laughter rises again and the tolerant guide smiles.

In that moment, we still believe that there is no cave so dark that we can’t see its colors and lighted passageways marking any number of safe exits.

Outside, the escalating heat and humidity mix with the damp coolness of my skin. It feels good for about thirty seconds, then I am sweltering hot.

“Well girls, time to go,” Dad says.

The LTD’s all packed, and their plan is to head straight home, but Dad’s words land like a boulder on my chest.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Debi says.

The three of us walk together to the rickety building with a cement floor and cracked porcelain sink. There is only toilet paper in one stall, so Debi passes a handful of the sandpapery squares to each of us under the dividers. When we line up to wash our hands tears are streaming down our faces. Aside from a few sniffles we are silent but the doors to our grief fling open and loneliness takes hold.

The mirror is made of metal instead of glass so, when we stare into it, our faces distort. A few minutes ago, this would have been funny but, in this moment, the distortions seem truer than reality, as if the mirror reflects something real but rarely seen.

We’re still crying when we get back to the cars and, when Jill joins in, it gives me hope that maybe she’ll let me stay with her long enough to earn some money before asking me to move out.

“What’s wrong, girls?” Dad asks. “Don’t cry or you’ll make me cry.” He leans against the LTD and smiles crooked.

We all laugh.

On the ride back to Mary’s house, I pick up my worn copy of The Fourth Way by P.D. Ouspensky, a book that my college roommate recommended to me. Its soft paper cover in my palm tells me to persevere.

I’d learned from other books that personal enlightenment requires seclusion from the world, which I can’t imagine. I pray that this alternate philosophy, a path for ordinary people not bound for a monastery or a convent, will help me navigate adulthood.

I open to a quote I’ve highlighted:

It is by overcoming obstacles that man develops those qualities he needs.

Back at Jill’s and clad in long sleeved polyester and suntan colored L’eggs support hose, I think of how brave it was for Dad to leave the farm and clean school bathrooms. I’m ready for my first night of waitressing, except I can’t find the ugly white uniform shoes. I’m also annoyed because, although I’m only five feet tall and weigh one hundred pounds, the crotch of the size small panty hose is hanging a good five inches below where it belongs. This will distract me all night.

When I finally spot the shoes in the corner of the bedroom, I notice the yellow Payless price tag protruding from the right one. It wasn’t like that before.

I pick it up and turn it over.

Wicked bad, this one.
We love you,
Debi and Michelle

I’m crying again, because it’s impossible to stay with my sisters and overcome the obstacles in my own life. But every bone in my body is ready to move forward. No waiting until I’m as old as Dad.

So, I put on the ugly shoes, pin up my hair, and set out to wait on tables.

Lee McAvoy is a writer, licensed mental health counselor in private practice, and retired elementary school teacher. She is currently querying a middle grade novel and three picture books.

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