The Walk (17 page)

“I lived on the streets of Dallas for almost a year until I was caught shoplifting at a Walmart and was sent to the Dallas County Juvenile Detention Center for three months.

“That’s where I met Leah. Leah wasn’t a juvie, she was older. She was one of the community volunteers. She became my friend and mentor. When I got out, she wanted me to go live with her, but I only promised to stay one week. But she was so good to me, I kept adding weeks.” She smiled slightly in fond recollection. “I stayed with her until I was twenty and left for college.”

She pulled back her sleeve exposing the two thick scars on her wrist. “It’s odd but I’m grateful for them now. They’re my reminders.”

“Of what?”

She looked up into my eyes. “To live.”

I thought over what she’d said. “When McKale died, I almost took my life. I had pills.”

“What stopped you?”

“A voice.” I felt odd saying it, but she didn’t seem at all skeptical.

“What did the voice say?”

“It told me that life wasn’t mine to take.” I rubbed my chin. “Just before she died, McKale asked me to promise her that I would live.”

She nodded. “I think we all have to make that choice. I meet dead people every day at the diner.”

“What do you mean?”

“People who have given up. That’s all death requires of us, to give up living.”

I wondered if I was one of them.

“The thing is, the only real sign of life is growth. And growth requires pain. So to choose life is to accept pain. Some people go to such lengths to avoid pain that they give up on life. They bury their hearts, or they drug or drink themselves numb until they don’t feel anything anymore. The irony is, in the end their escape becomes more painful than what they’re avoiding.”

I looked down for a while. “I know you’re right. But I don’t know if I can live without her. A part of me died with her.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, rubbing my shin. After a moment she said, “You know, she’s not really gone. She’s still a part of you.
What
part of you is your choice. She can be a spring of gratitude and joy, or she can be a fountain of bitterness and pain. It is entirely up to you.”

The thought had never occurred to me that I was making McKale into something bad.

“You have to decide to look through the pain.”

“What do you mean?”

“Leah taught me that the greatest secret of life is that we find exactly what we’re looking for. In spite of what happens to us, ultimately we decide whether our lives are good or bad, ugly or beautiful.”

I thought this over.

“Leah told me this story. Some newspaper did an experiment. I don’t remember what city it was in, but they had a man with a violin go down into the subway and play music. It was rush hour, and thousands of people passed him while he played.

“A few people threw him money, but other than that, no one paid any attention. When he finished he just walked away.

“What no one knew was that the musician was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest violinists in the world. He had just played a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall at $100 a ticket. The piece he was playing was one of the most complex and beautiful pieces ever written, and he was playing it on a $2 million Stradivarius.” She smiled at me. “I love that story,” she said. “Because it sums up Leah’s life. She would have stopped to listen.

“The night before I left for college Leah said to me, ‘Ally, some people in this world have stopped looking for beauty, then wonder why their lives are so ugly. Don’t be like them. The ability to appreciate beauty is of God. Especially in one another. Look for beauty in everyone you meet, and you’ll find it. Everyone carries divinity within them. And everyone we meet has something to impart.’”

I thought of Will, the homeless man at the Jack in the Box.

“Do you still see much of Leah?” I asked.

“No. She passed away during my junior year in college.” Ally’s eyes welled up with tears. “She died of cancer. But I was fortunate to be with her before she passed.”

She put her head down for a moment. She wiped her eyes, then looked up at me. “The night before she died I sat next to her in bed. She reached up and ran her hand across my cheek, then said to me, ‘When you were brought into detention all the court could see was a troubled young lady. But I knew you were special the moment I laid eyes on you. I was right, wasn’t I? Never forget, Ally, God puts people in our lives for a reason. Only through helping others can we save ourselves.’”

I nodded slowly. “That’s why you asked if I was okay.”

“I had this feeling that you were one of those people I was supposed to meet.”

“I’m glad you did,” I said.

She affectionately squeezed my foot. “I better let you get to bed.”

My head was still swimming with her words. I didn’t want her to go. “Do you work tomorrow?” I asked.

“No. It’s my day off, and I promised a friend I’d help her paint her living room.”

I stood, took her hand, and lifted her up. We walked to the door. For a moment, we just looked at each other. “Thank you,” I said. “For the foot rub, the food, the food for thought . . .”

“I hope it helped.” She leaned in and hugged me. When
we parted, she said, “Will you let me know when you make it to Key West?”

“Yes. How will I find you?”

“I’m on Facebook. Allyson Lynette Walker.”

“Your last name is
Walker?
”

She smiled. “Yes. It should be yours.”

I laughed. “I promise. I’ll send you some sand.”

“I’d like that.” She stepped outside.

“Ally,” I said.

She turned back.

“Thank you.”

She leaned forward and kissed my cheek. “Have a good walk.” Then she turned and walked away.

The next morning I just lay in bed thinking. For the first time in days, I wasn’t overcome by grief. Something inside me felt different. Profoundly different. I suppose I felt hope. Or maybe I felt some part of McKale again—the
real
McKale and not the despairing phantom I’d made of her.

I got up, showered, then walked around the bungalow, gathering up things. My clothes were dry, except for two pairs of my thickest socks, which I rolled up and packed along with everything else.

I locked up the bungalow and walked over to the diner, hoping Ally might somehow be there. She wasn’t. Her replacement wore a name tag that said,
PEGGY SUE
. I didn’t ask her her real name.

I returned the key to the bungalow, then ordered a stack of banana pancakes with a 59er Scramble—a scrambled egg with ham, onion, tomato, and green pepper, topped with cheddar cheese and sour cream.

By eight-thirty, I was walking again. The road was still mostly downhill and followed the Wenatchee River, which was moving in the same direction I was walking and not much faster.

I walked all day and only stopped for a few minutes for lunch—a banana, an apple, and a couple of muffins I
had bought at the diner. It was all the food I had. Peggy-Sue, the waitress, had told me there was a grocery store at Leavenworth, where I planned to stock up on supplies.

Leavenworth was exactly the way Ally had described it. The town looked as if it had been plucked from the Alps and dropped in the center of Chelan County.

The main street was lined with old-world, European street poles with decorative holiday snowflakes hanging from them. There were at least a dozen hotels and inns. I chose the one that looked the least expensive: Der
Ritterhof Motor Inn.

Being in the town made me hungry for German food, and I found a suitable restaurant. I ordered a full fare: Wiener schnitzel, Leberkäse, rotkraut, and spätzle with Jäger sauce.

I remembered the one time I took McKale to a German restaurant. She was as out of place as a diabetic in a chocolate factory. She asked me if they had anything besides over-sized, fancy hot dogs. I ended up taking her to a McDonald’s afterwards to get something to eat.

The memory made me laugh. I realized that it was the first time that thinking about McKale didn’t make my stomach hurt. I left it up to the food to do that.

I got up shortly after dawn. I showered and dressed, then walked across the street to the Bistro Espresso, where I ordered a light breakfast of coffee and a cheese Danish. I think I was still digesting the meal from the night before.

I finished eating, then I walked down to a bank. I put my card in the ATM and pushed the button to check my balance. There was $28,797. When I left Bellevue, there had been less than a thousand dollars in the account. Falene had been busy.
I love that woman,
I thought.

I went back to my room, packed up my things, then checked out. I walked three blocks to the Food Lion, where I stocked up on everything I needed (including a box of Hostess Ding Dongs), then hit the road.

In less than an hour, I passed through Ally’s town of Peshastin. I had found myself replaying our conversation all morning. Somehow it just felt good knowing she was somewhere near.

Two hours later, I reached the town of Cashmere. There were orchards everywhere, though the trees were barren in the winter landscape. There were big fans in the fields and silver streamers tied to all the tree branches.

There was a warehouse with the Tree Top apple juice logo painted on its side. I had once tried to pitch their account. I couldn’t remember why we hadn’t gotten it.

Everywhere I looked there were signs for fruit—apples, apricots, cherries, and pears—and I passed by at least a dozen empty roadside fruit stands. The place was a ghost town in off-season.

At the edge of town, I sat down on a patch of straw-colored grass to stretch and eat my lunch—two foil-wrapped burritos I had bought at the Food Lion’s deli.

I marveled at how completely the landscape had changed from the days before. It was now wide open and flat: a sharp contrast to the dense forests and sloping terrain that had encompassed every step of the last week. Walking on a flat road is much easier than climbing a mountain, but all things considered, I’d take the mountains. I liked the security and tranquility of the forest.

Just outside Wenatchee, I stopped and ate a simple dinner of French bread and peanut butter, which I spread with my Swiss Army pocket knife. The town center was far enough from the highway that I didn’t stop. I was growing more eager to make it to Spokane. That night I slept in an apple orchard under the stars.

Rain started falling in the night, and around three in the morning, I got up and built my tent, something I was getting proficient at. When I woke at dawn, the drizzle had stopped, but the ground was wet, and by the time I was out of the orchard, my shoes were caked with several inches of mud. I did my best to kick and scrape it off, then resumed my walk.

In Orondo City, the road split, and I turned east toward Waterville and Spokane. I was in the buckle of Washington’s fruit belt. More than the landscape had changed. The culture had as well. I noticed that most of the store signs were in Spanish.

I ate a sausage and egg biscuit at a gas station near the fork between Waterville and Orondo City, and I was the only one in the building who wasn’t speaking Spanish.

A few miles later, the landscape grew more mountainous, and for much of the walk there was a wide gorge to my right with only a narrow walkway. The highway was dark and wet, and I was sprayed by nearly every car that passed. The road climbed again—almost as steeply as it had at the pass—and I could tell that I was much stronger than when I started my walk, as my pace barely slowed.

Two hours into the day, it began to rain again. I stopped and put on my poncho and kept walking.

On one of the tighter mountain curves, there was a car pulled over to the side next to the safety rail. Its trunk was open, and its caution lights were flashing.
Bad place to break down
, I thought. As I approached, I saw that the car, a silver-gray Malibu, was lifted up on a jack, and there were two tires lying flat on the ground, the flat tire and a
spare.

I walked up to the driver’s window. Inside the car was a lone woman. She was about my age or a little older, in her mid-thirties. She had blond hair that fell to her shoulders. She was holding her cell phone. A pine air freshener and a crucifix hung from her rearview mirror next to a picture of a little boy.

Her door was locked, and the window was rolled up. I rapped on her window, and it startled her. She looked up at me fearfully.

“Do you need help?” I asked.

She cracked her window a few inches.

“What?”

“Do you need any help?”

“No,” she said anxiously, “my husband went to town to get help. He should be right back.”

“Okay.”

I’m not sure why I glanced at her left hand, but I noticed that there was no wedding ring. I considered moving on, but I was never one to leave a woman in distress, especially alone on such a dangerous stretch. I glanced back at her flat tire. “Listen, you’re not safe here. It looks like you have a spare. If it’s just a flat, I can change it.”

She hesitated, caught between her deceit and desperation. Finally she said, “I lost the . . . things.”

I didn’t understand. “What things?”

“The metal things. The bolts.”

I looked again at the wheel, then saw what she was talking about. There were no lug nuts. “What happened to them?”