Walking on Water: A Novel (28 page)

Kailamai is doing well. She still hopes to get into law school and to someday be a judge. Or a stand-up comedian. Either way the world will be a better place.

In January I opened an advertising agency here in Pasadena—a new agency with an old name: MADGIC. My first client was the car dealership my father did accounting for. My second was Wathen Development, the company I was pitching the day I learned of McKale’s accident.

Things are going well, and I already have as much
work as I can handle. I doubt I’ll ever move back to Seattle, even though I have a few clients from there.

Falene is here with me in Pasadena. After she broke off the wedding, the agency dropped her contract. It’s one of the best things that has ever happened to her. She’s been working with me at the agency and volunteers weekends at a drug rehabilitation clinic for teenagers. I think she’s finally starting to believe that she’s more than just the girl behind the bleachers.

On New Year’s Day, Falene and I went to the arboretum and sat on the same bench we had the night of my father’s viewing. I asked her to marry me. She smiled and said, “Why do you think I’ve been following you around all this time?”

We plan to get married May 3. Someplace indoors. Falene asked if we could honeymoon in Key West. I told her I’ve been there.

I think about McKale every day. I suppose that the hole never really goes away, but I’ve learned that you can fill it with things. Good things. My memories of her are no longer just a source of pain. They are also a fountain of gratitude for the time and love we shared. I still have my days, but I don’t think it would be right if I didn’t.

I sometimes think about those angels I met along my walk: Leszek, the Holocaust survivor in Mitchell, South Dakota, who lifted me from the road and taught me how to forgive; Paige, the young woman who rescued
me from a tornado outside Jackson City, Missouri; and Analise, the lovely, lonely woman I stayed with in Sidney, Iowa. As I promised, I sent an envelope filled with sand from Key West to Ally, the wise waitress from the 59er Diner near Leavenworth, Washington, and I’ve spoken twice with McKale’s mother, Pamela, who followed me all the way from Custer, South Dakota, to Wall Drug. I am grateful for each of them and the role they played in my journey.

Every now and then people ask me about my walk. They seem surprised or amazed by it, not seeing that it’s really no different than what they do every day. Whether they realize it or not, we are all on a walk. And, like me on my journey, none of us know what experiences we’ll face or who we’ll meet along our road. The best we can do is set our hearts on a mark in the distance and try to make it. For some the road will seem long, while, for others, it will end all too soon. There will be days of clear skies and pleasant walking, and there will be long, bitter stretches trudged through storms. But either way we must walk. It’s what we were made for.

I have fulfilled my final promise to McKale. I am living. But the journey seems different to me now. I suppose that the trail never changes as much as the traveler.

When we are young, the road seems so sure and firm. We tell ourselves that we have tomorrow—then we waste our todays in fear of what might be and regret of what wasn’t. And we miss the truth that the road is an illusion, and that there are no guarantees of a new day—there never have been, there never will be.

In the end, it is not by knowledge that we make our journeys but by hope and faith: hope that our walk will be worthy of our steps and faith that we are going somewhere. And only when we come to the end of our journeys do we truly understand that every step of the way we were walking on water.

A Letter from the Author

I
’m sometimes asked how I came up with the idea for The Walk series. The simple answer is, I was walking. The better answer is that I was walking the four-mile dirt road to my ranch near Zion National Park when the idea came to me to write a story about a man walking across America. The mental conversation that followed went something like this:

Why did the man cross America?

I don’t know.

Does he really need a reason?

I’ve always wanted to walk across America.

Then why don’t you?

Because I’m married, I have a family, a home, a job. I’m tied down to responsibilities.

What if you lost all that?

That’s when the potential of the series hit me: if you take away everything a man lives for, then what does he live for? That was a question worth writing about.

As I sat down to write this story, I soon realized it could not happen from my den; I would have to make the journey myself. I asked my eldest daughter and writing assistant, Jenna, if she would make the trip with me, and she happily agreed. I hadn’t realized at the time what a blessing it would be to drive from coast to coast with my daughter.

Driving more than three thousand miles across America was a remarkable adventure. In Yellowstone we were trapped in a herd of buffalo. In Missouri we were forced to take shelter from a tornado. We stopped in the hometowns of people who have changed the world. We walked through fields of potatoes, corn, and cotton, hiked through canyons and swamps, and even held alligators. We climbed lighthouses and walked through cemeteries at night. We took notes in hospitals and met scores of people who shared with us their life stories. One of our most interesting interviews was with Israel, a hitchhiker we picked up outside Hannibal, Missouri, who shared his experience of fourteen years on the road and taught us the difference between tramps, hobos, and mountain men.

But all journeys must come to an end. After five years of writing and researching The Walk, the emotions that crossed my heart when I reached the Key West sign were
a powerful mix of accomplishment, finality, and nostalgia. I was grateful that I had made the choices that led me to the end of this road—literally as well as figuratively.

It’s difficult for me to completely fathom how much this series has meant to many of my readers. Ultimately, The Walk is about hope, and on multiple occasions I’ve heard how the series has interrupted someone’s plan to commit suicide. I’ve seen tough old men, war veterans, cry as they told me how the series had given them hope to carry on after losing their sweethearts.

And we’ve had dozens of people call from their deathbeds wanting to know how the series ends before they die.

To all those reading this series, whatever city or country you’re in, thank you for joining me on this sojourn and search for meaning and hope in a vast, mysterious world. I hope you have enjoyed the read. But even more, I hope it has brought some illumination to help you on your journey along the difficult and unsure paths of life that each of us must walk.

Sincerely,

Richard Paul Evans