They Almost Always Come Home (8 page)

“I came to pray God’s blessings on your trip.”

So he does. Then he presses two hundred dollars from the church’s benevolent fund into my hand to help cover the cost of the trip. Before he can say
bon voyage
or
vaya con Dios
— either of which would sound a little strange coming from a tall Swede—I thank him and open the passenger door.

“Well,” he says, “we won’t stop praying for you three and Greg. Can’t wait to hear the miracle stories.” Yeah. Me, either.

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********

I watch the familiar fade from my field of vision. Riding

shotgun isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when the road leads away from the comfort of home and toward an unknown that prom- ises nothing but the likelihood of an unhappy ending.

The first miles of our trip seem innocuous enough. If it

weren’t for the twin-peaked canoe “awning” visible through the windshield and my father-in-law behind the wheel, this could be a trip to the antique mall—if it weren’t for the awning, my father-in-law, and the tightness in my chest.

Dawn was tardy but eventually showed up. The corn looks

good. Both sweet and field. Subtle difference in tassel color. Even those of us who don’t farm can appreciate the sight of healthy cornstalks along the highway followed by close- cropped hayfields followed by pastures of healthy-looking Holsteins.

Greg always sees these scenes through the spectrum of a

grocery store: cases of creamed corn, gallons of milk, a cooler full of meat, ingots of cheese.

I see them as artwork. Green on green. Shadows and light.

The delicate symmetry in the height of the cornstalks and the pattern of enormous round hay bales waiting for hungry heifers.

What have he and I ever observed through the same eyes?

Our children.

I turn in my seat to see if Jen has anything to talk about. I

need a diversion stronger than corn. She’s napping. Good idea. Would if I could.

“You okay?” Frank asks from the cockpit of this adventure

ride.

I face forward again and search the view through the wind-

shield for an answer to his question. “Fine.”

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“How is that possible?” He tosses me a smile full of empathy.

“Frank, thank you.”

“For what?”

“Making this trip. Allowing us to come.”

His hands grip the steering wheel at eleven o’clock and six o’clock. Now ten and two. Now five and seven. “Did I have a choice?”

“Sure you did. You could have told us what we already know—that we’re crazy.”

“And if I hadn’t given in to you two, what would have hap- pened next?”

The turkey farm to my right draws my attention but offers no words for me. I’m on my own. “We probably would have pestered you until your eardrums bled.”

“Figured as much. Get a steady diet of that at home.” He’s never before admitted anything of a personal nature. What am I supposed to do with the confession? “Well, thanks anyway.”

“You’re welcome. I’m no saint, though.” I know. Me, either.

He continues, “I don’t mind telling you I have my doubts you two can stick this out more than a couple of days at the pace we’ll have to keep. No offense.”

I want to respond with a reminder of how many years it’s been since he took a trip like this, how rusty he might be, how much older he is, how it’s dangerous to underestimate the power of a woman scorned or grieving. But I have more confidence that he’s right than that I am. “You know we’ll try our hardest, Frank.”

“I know. You always have. On almost everything.”

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Almost? I don’t need to ask what he means. The whole world

knows I could have tried harder to keep Greg from wanting to leave me.

Frank reaches to turn on the radio, another move for which

I’m grateful. Until the music starts.

Elvis. He’s so lonely, he could die.

“Could we change the channel?”

Frank flinches. “I guess. None of that ‘Rock of Ages’ stuff.

Okay?”

Punching the “seek” button four times lands us on an

oldies-but-not-as-old-as-Elvis station. Safe for now.

I lean my head against the side window. Closing my eyes

against the blast of air conditioning, I disappear into the sound of yesterday’s troubles seeming so far away. Not true.

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W
e’ve been on the road for nine hours, and we’re still more than a hundred miles from our first Canadian destination— the ranger station where we’ll check in. We could have been well on our way toward a vacation on a white-sand beach in Florida by this time.

Instead, we’re bumping along narrow highways with a great variety of roadkill littering the shoulders. Bloated porcupines, whole families of raccoons, mangled white-tailed deer pulver- ized by passing semis, a rare coyote—or was that a wolf once upon a time?—and something big and brown with a long, flat tail. I thought it was a beaver, but Jen thinks she saw tire tracks on the tail, which means the tail may not have started out flat.

I let down my grief-guard long enough to appreciate the wildflowers along the road. Despite their weedy heritage, the periwinkle-blue chicory blossoms are an elegant adornment against a sun-scorched, windblown late-summer landscape. The newspapers are full of complaints about the purple loose- strife that’s reproducing like rabbits without consciences, but I find its color a relief from endless miles of green and brown

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and tan in the ditches. Indian paintbrush, black-eyed Susans, and Queen Anne’s lace complete the long, narrow bouquets.

“Did you notice,” Jen asks between bites of granola bar, “that

the farther north we venture, the wimpier the pine trees get?”

I’m driving. Jen’s navigating. Frank’s supposed to be sleep-

ing in the backseat in preparation for his next stint behind the wheel. But he mumbles, “It’ll get worse. Where we’re headed, the topsoil, if you can call it that, is as thin as my wife slices cheese. Solid rock underneath. Nothing can put down tradi- tional roots. That’s one of the reasons you won’t find many oaks and other taproot trees this far north. The thin topsoil changes the ecostructure.”

Ecostructure? When did he start using words like that?

“Tree roots,” he says with a yawn, “like cedars and pines,

spread out rather than reach downward. Makes them . . . unstable . . . in high . . . winds.”

Jen and I glance at each other and smile. He’s snoring before

he finishes the word “winds.”

The burger we grabbed at a drive-through hours ago sits

like wet plaster in my stomach. As we bounce over yet another bump the highway department neglected to announce, I note that the wet plaster is tumbling in a cement mixer. I should be starting this trip much stronger than I am. Physically too.

Jen’s experimenting with the satellite phone Frank rented

from Northern Rent-All for more money than we’ll inherit when he passes. She has to roll down the window and point its antennae halfway to the Twin Cities to get it to work, but she manages to make a test call. Her beloved. How sweet. She reports our progress, lets him know she’s fine, and says she misses him and their girls already. Tell me about it. Then she asks Brent to call Pastor and make sure he put our trip on the prayer chain.

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Something wrinkles inside my chest. Is that what I want? For this misadventure to be broadcast all over the church? Less than a day into this crisis, church friends were showing up at my door with casseroles, Bundt cakes, and Jell-O salads with fruit cocktail and marshmallows. Pastel-colored marsh- mallows. If God had wanted marshmallows to come in pastel colors, He would have—

Never mind.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the gestures. But as I packed more food into my fridge, it became more evident that I was the only one at home to eat it. I suppose I’ll have to write thank-you notes when I get home. If I’m not knee-deep in funeral preparations or searching for a cheap but determined “marriage eraser” lawyer. People with Bibles on their coffee tables don’t use the “D” word.

In the confines of the Blazer, it’s impossible not to overhear Jen on the phone. She reassures Brent that we all understand how much he wishes he could have joined us. I would have gladly let him take my place. He would serve this team well with his experience and strength and the fact that he can care deeply without falling apart like I do.

His work wouldn’t allow his accompanying us. Plus we would need the space in that second canoe to . . . to bring Greg home.

“That’s a little weird to get used to,” Jen says after finishing her test-run with the SAT phone.

“What is?”

“The time delay. We both can’t speak at the same time or the voices cancel each other out. I suppose it would work bet- ter if we did that thing they do in the movies.”

I check my rearview mirror and pull into the left lane to pass yet another logging truck. The canoes strapped to the top

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of Frank’s Blazer whistle and sing with the increased speed. That could get annoying.

“What thing?”

“Next time I use the phone,” Jen persists, “I’ll finish my

sentence, then I’ll say ‘over.’ That’ll let Brent know it’s okay to talk.”

“How much battery life does it have?” I’d love for us to have

to use it our first day out to tell the boys and Greg’s stepmom and Pastor and the prayer chain that we found Greg, safe and sound, and are coming home. That’s what I want, right?

A week. We have a week to find our answers before life and

its appointments force us to return home. If Greg is out there somewhere in the wilderness, how could he last that long? If he’s on his way to a new life in Aruba with a woman who—unlike me—could afford a plastic surgeon for her imperfections, why are we doing this?

********

We pull into the gas station/convenience store/Subway

restaurant combo in International Falls for a much-needed bathroom break. We’re running on fumes in the gas tank, but Frank insists we need to wait to fill up until we cross into Canada. He wants to maximize our ability to stretch our gas supply for the Canadian side of our trip, noting the infrequency of gas stations there compared to the U.S. side.

Frank danced in his seat when we crossed from Wisconsin

into Minnesota at Duluth and discovered a significant drop in gas prices between the two states. I half expected him to call Pauline on the SAT phone and talk her into moving to Minnesota.

Frank nods toward the restaurant half of the convenience

store as he checks the straps holding down the canoes. “Better take advantage of the opportunity for some hot food.”

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“Hot food? Does that mean I can’t have a cold smoked tur- key sub with provolone and cucumber?” Jenika teases. “Mark my words,” he says. We wait for what those mark- worthy words will be. Nothing.

“I just want a Diet Pepsi,” I tell Jenika as I lean against the side of the Blazer to stretch my back muscles. “Ask for extra ice,” Frank says.

“Why?”

“A week from now, you’ll think ice is a gift from heaven.” So he’s assuming this will take all week. That’s not a good sign.

********

It’s always a little nerve-racking with Frank behind the wheel. He was one of the reasons someone invented cruise control, which wouldn’t be a problem if the cruise control worked on the Blazer.

We don’t need to worry about his speed behind the wheel as we approach the border crossing, though. We crawl in a line of forty or more vehicles waiting to pass through the Canadian customs checkpoint in the heart of International Falls.

I should have brought a book to read. Jen occupies herself by talking sign language to the little boy who signs back from the rear window of his family’s RV in line ahead of us. Did I know she knew sign language? Oh, that’s right. Her niece is deaf.

We’re forty-five-minute veterans of the crawling line now. Frank slips the Blazer into “park” and turns off the ignition. What is he doing? He undoes his seatbelt latch and opens the door. Right here on the highway!

When I hear him fiddling with the gas cap, I understand. He’s using the spare gas can to pour a little American gas into

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the tank so we can make it as far as a Canadian gas station. Before the vehicles behind us have a chance to grow impatient, he’s back in the driver’s seat, catching us up the five feet the line has moved since he turned off the engine.

Ontario is less than a block away now. The customs office

looks like an enormous, glorified toll booth. In just a few min- utes it will be our turn.

“Let me do the talking, girls,” Frank says, as if we’re smug-

gling contraband or something. We’re not, are we?

Jen reaches over the back seat toward me. “Hand me your

passport.”

I dig though my purse for the document I’ve needed only

once in my forty-five years, when a short-term missions trip to Belize with the boys’ youth group two years ago convinced me I was allergic to orphanages.

I remember Greg’s incredulity when the U.S.-Canada bor-

der crossing rules changed and a driver’s license was no longer adequate proof of identity or citizenship. How had I kept my wits about me to remind the others to include their passports in our warp-speed packing?

While the customs officer scans the interior of our vehicle

and looks over our documents, I scan the interior of my purse. I’m about to embark on a leg of this journey for which I won’t need my purse or anything in it. I remove a lip gloss and slip it into the breast pocket of my denim shirt. From my wallet, I grab pictures of Zack and Alex. They join the lip gloss. I dig into the depths of my bag again.