Edward Adrift

by Craig Lancaster

  I will have to think about it a while before committing to telling her. Instead, I say something else, because it occurs to me that as Sheila Renfro describes her parents to me, she’s telling me about people I never got a chance to know even though I met both of them in the summer of 1978. That’s odd. It’s like they’re more than an anecdote and less than a robust memory.

  “I wish I’d gotten to know your parents,” I say. “I’m sorry they’re in the ground.”

  “You’d have liked them,” Sheila Renfro says. “And I think they’d have liked you.”

  I’m trying to formulate my next question when I actually hear the words coming out of my mouth.

  “How did you find out when your parents died?” I can’t believe I just asked it like that. I was too abrupt, but Sheila Renfro doesn’t seem to mind.

  “It happened in the middle of a hot summer day, seven miles from home,” she says. “The sheriff and a deputy got there fast, and one of them came to the motel to get me. I was making dinner for us. Grilled chicken. It was too hot to cook inside, so I was on the patio. He said, ‘Sheila, you’ve got to put that chicken away and come.’ By the time we got there, it was over with. Daddy and Mom were in bags on the side of the road. The guy who hit them was, too. I guess he had a heart attack and lost control of his pickup. He hit their pickup on my daddy’s side at seventy miles per hour. Sheriff said there were no skid marks.”

  Sheila tells me all of this matter-of-factly. I am mesmerized.

  “How did you find out about your daddy?” she asks me.

  “My mother called and woke me up and told me to come to St. Vincent Healthcare right away. He died after I got there.”

  “What happened?”

  “He had a heart attack in the parking lot of his favorite golf course.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I haven’t thought about the actual day that my father died in a long time. It’s been three years, one month, and eighteen days, and most of my effort where my father is concerned has been focused on making peace with every day other than the one on which he died.

  “After the doctor told us he’d died, we got to go into the hospital room and see him. It was weird. It was clearly his face, but his hair was mussed, and the qualities that made him who he was—things like his loud voice and his mannerisms—were gone. The only thing that I really thought was odd was how peaceful he looked. He looked much more peaceful than he did the last time I saw him alive.”

  “They wouldn’t let me see my daddy,” Sheila Renfro says. “They said it was really bad and that it wouldn’t be something I’d want to see. My mom didn’t have a scratch on her, though—she died because of how shook up her insides were in the wreck. They let me see her. It looked like she was sleeping.”

  “What was your mother like?”

  “She was a good person. My daddy was my best friend; he had the mind of a child, and so I related to him. My mom didn’t make a lot of time for fun. She was too busy trying to keep things going. I think I’m more like she was.”

  It’s interesting to me that Sheila Renfro has thought all of this out. I’ve never considered whether I’m more like my father or my mother. I don’t think I’m like either one of them. That’s been the problem.

  When we leave the interstate at Limon, I ask Sheila Renfro if we can turn around and go find the place where I ran into the snowplow. I would like to see it, now that the sun is out and it’s not snowing. Also, it will give me a chance to correct this mileage discrepancy.

  “The gauge says 268,443.4,” she says as we merge onto Interstate 70 westbound.

  I try to reconcile what I’m seeing now with what it looked like two days ago, when Kyle and I were driving through a blinding snowstorm in the middle of the night. It’s impossible to do.

  “Here it is,” Sheila Renfro says, and she slows down so she can pull over on the shoulder of the interstate.

  Broken pieces of my turn signal are on the side of the asphalt. I see them now, and I guess that’s how Sheila Renfro knew to stop here. You’re not supposed to stop here, but she doesn’t seem concerned. It’s her business if she wants to risk a traffic ticket.

  “What does the mileage say?” I ask.

  “Let’s see…it’s 268,449.2.”

  “So that’s 5.8 miles from Limon.”

  “Looks like it.”

  I do the calculations in my head. “So that means I’ve driven 1,844.9 miles on this trip, not 1,846.1.”

  “If you say so.”

  “That’s clearly what the math indicates.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  This flummoxes me. “I don’t know. I like to track things.”

  “Are you going to include the miles we’ve gone today in your total?”

  “That’s a silly question, Sheila Renfro,” I say. “Of course I am.”

  “Do you know how far we’ve gone today?”

  “No, but I can look up the distance from St. Joseph Hospital to Cheyenne Wells, and I can account for this detour.”

  “Can you account for the different route I took through Denver?”

  I don’t like where this conversation is headed.

  “You took a different route?”

  “Yes. There was road construction and bad traffic, so I went a different way.”

  “Which way did you go?” This situation, while not ideal, is not irretrievable (I love the word “irretrievable”). I can still use the Internet to figure out the mileage.

  “I don’t remember.”

  This situation has become irretrievable.

  “Shit,” I say.

  “It’s no big deal, Edward. Also, don’t cuss around me.”

  I try to stay miffed at Sheila Renfro, but it’s not possible. I like her too much. I remember how much she has done and is doing for me, taking care of me at the hospital and now bringing me back to Cheyenne Wells so I can recuperate.

  “Sheila Renfro,” I ask, “what did—”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Say what?”

  “Sheila Renfro. You say my first and last name every time you talk to me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s weird.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  “It’s a little weird.”

  “What do you want me to call you?”

  “Just Sheila. Or you could call me ‘She-Pumpkin,’ which is what my daddy used to call me.”

  “I don’t think I could call you that.”

  “I know, silly. I was making a joke.”

  Sheila Renfro is pretty funny sometimes.

  “She-ster?” I say.

  “What was that? A nickname?”

  “I thought I’d try it.”

  “Don’t. Nicknames should come naturally. It sounds like you’re trying.”

  I’m growing flummoxed and frustrated.

  “OK, can I just ask you the question I’ve been trying to ask?”

  “Sure, E-Dog.”

  “E-Dog?”

  “Yes, that’s your nickname.”

  “It sounds like you’re the one trying now.”

  “I’m not trying at all. It came perfectly naturally.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “OK, how about Eddie Smoochiekins?”

  “E-Dog is fine, I think.”

  Sheila Renfro laughs and bobs her head left and right.

  She’s having a good time.

  Here’s a secret: I’m having a good time, too.

  We pass through the town of Kit Carson and Sheila Renfro says, “We’re close now. Twenty-five miles.”

  I like the countryside here. It’s stark and hard, not the lush and mountainous beauty that one tends to associate with Colorado. In that way, it reminds me of the part of Montana I’m from.

  I remember being in the eastern Montana town of Terry with my father when I was a teenager and him pointing out the buttes in the distance, which he called “badlands.” He said that whole part of Montana was homest
eaded and that a lot of people couldn’t make a go of it, because the weather and the terrain were so unforgiving. He said we should admire the people who still lived there, because they had beaten the odds and the land and whittled a life into that bleak landscape. My father was big on defeating things, be they political opponents or systems or landscapes. It was all a competition for him.

  I haven’t read up on the history of homesteading in this part of Colorado, but I bet that the people who have made this area home would draw my father’s admiration for their tenacity (I love the word “tenacity”). Maybe that’s why he enjoyed working here. Maybe that’s why he’s been in my dreams, urging me to come here.

  I must be careful. That’s a lot of maybes and projections, and those are unreliable things, as I know all too well.

  Sheila Renfro slows down and eases her Suburban to the shoulder of the road. We’re on a flat, straight stretch of the highway, with fallow farmland on both sides of us.

  “How are you feeling, E-Dog?” she says. “Can you get up and walk a little bit?”

  “Here?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  “OK, S-Money.”

  “Another nickname?”

  “Yes.”

  “I like that one.”

  I put my hands on the bench seat and push myself to the full sitting position while Sheila Renfro gets out of the Suburban and walks to the other side to let me out. My ribs ache, but it’s not the screaming pain I’ve come to expect. With the door now open, I scrunch along on the seat until my feet are nearly out the door.

  “Do you need some help?” she asks.

  “No, I think I have it.”

  Slowly, I reach for the pavement with my toes, until at last they find it. I grab the door frame with my hands and push myself to my feet. Again, the pain is slight rather than overwhelming.

  “You did great, E-Dog!” she says.

  “Thank you, S-Money.”

  Sheila Renfro laughs and so do I.

  “Follow me,” she says.

  She leads me behind the Suburban, and then she looks both ways on the two-lane highway to ensure it’s safe to cross. There’s nobody out here.

  We walk across the road to a grassy area on the other side. Sheila Renfro points to a spot about ten feet off the road.

  “My daddy and my mom died right there.” Again, she says this matter-of-factly, as if she’s passing along esoterica (I love the word “esoterica”) rather than something deeply personal and painful. Dr. Buckley calls this “compartmentalization.” Dr. Buckley often told me that people develop strategies for keeping themselves from being harmed by others. Compartmentalizing pain helps with this. Compartmentalization was a difficult concept for me to master. I’m not good at developing strategies for pain. If something hurts me, I’m hurt, and I don’t hide it well. I hope Sheila Renfro knows that I don’t wish to hurt her.

  “I drive by here all the time,” she says. “Unless I want to go to Kansas, it’s the only route that leads anywhere I want to go. Every time I pass by, I think ‘Bam. They’re dead.’ People tell you life is short. They have no idea.”

  I finally understand how deep Sheila Renfro’s loss is. As I think about it now, I realize that in the three years, one month, and eighteen days that my father has been dead, I have never driven past the golf course where he had his heart attack. I don’t think I have consciously thought “I can’t go by there,” but I have avoided it just the same. Before I left on this trip, when I was coming home from Rimrock Mall (after getting my bitchin’ iPhone) and taking a circuitous (I love the word “circuitous”) route home to avoid left turns, I went all the way to Shiloh Road instead of Zimmerman Trail, because Zimmerman Trail runs right by the parking lot where my father was stricken.

  In a big city like Billings, I can compartmentalize my pain. Where Sheila Renfro lives, she must confront it all the time. I feel sad for my friend. She continues to stare at the spot, her hands jammed in her pockets, saying nothing.

  “Sheila Renfro?” I say.

  “Yes?”

  “I would like to give you a hug.”

  I have accepted hugs from people before, and I’ve even learned to like them from some people, like Donna Middleton (now Hays). I don’t remember ever asking to give somebody a hug. I’m going with a feeling, as Dr. Buckley would say.

  Sheila Renfro takes her hands from her pockets and steps toward me, closing the distance between us and pressing against me gently. She is being mindful of my ribs. I close my arms around her back. I smell Irish Spring. I miss my father. I miss certainty. I’ve begun to wonder if I ever had it. If I didn’t, I miss the illusion of certainty.

  I could stand here with her forever. That’s intentional overstatement. Obviously, I can’t stand here forever. Eventually, we’ll have to eat. Our muscles will get tired. The weather will turn poor sometime.

  A pickup headed toward Kit Carson passes, and the stirred-up wind stings us. I hug Sheila Renfro again. It won’t be forever, but I’ll hang on for as long as I can.

  TECHNICALLY MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2011

  My father came back.

  It’s 2:11 a.m., and I’m breathing heavily again. The dream that knocked me out of sleep was a strange one. I was viewing my father’s body in the hospital, only it didn’t look like the antiseptic room where I saw him at St. Vincent Healthcare. This looked more like a church, with wooden seats and dark-colored carpeting. Carpeting, of course, would be totally impractical for a hospital.

  The scene was different from what happened in the conscious world in other ways, too. My mother was there, and she was crying, and that was the same. But Jay L. Lamb wasn’t there, like he was the day my father died. Sheila Renfro was there in my dream. She said, “He’s going into the ground now, Edward.”

  That’s when I woke up.

  I lean to my left and flip on the light in my room. I’m back in room number four. Sheila Renfro told me I could stay in her little cottage, but I declined. I told her that if I stayed there, she wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep. She said we could share her bed—not that we’d do anything, she said, just that we could share it. I didn’t feel comfortable with that. I also told her that I would just as soon pay her for the time I spend here, and she got angry about that, which flummoxed me. She said I was her guest. I said that she had already lost a lot of money by closing down while I was in the hospital. She said she would think about it. So that’s where we are now. She’s in her cottage, I’m in room number four, and she’s thinking about it.

  Sheila Renfro wrote down her direct home number on a piece of paper. If I have any distress at all, I’m to pick up the in-room phone, dial nine, and then dial that number. So far, there has been no distress, only a perplexing dream.

  Slowly, I rotate my legs to the side of the bed and sit up. The pain is considerable, much worse than it was just a few hours ago. According to the clock, I can have another pain pill, and I think it’s wise that I take advantage.

  The pain hits me again as I stand. I walk, blinking, to the bathroom and get a Percocet and fill a cup with water, and then I wash the pill down. With that done, I head back to bed and turn on the TV. Given the limited selection of channels, there’s not much on, just a late-night movie on one of the Denver stations. Jim Carrey, who used to be funny, is in it. I decide I’m not interested and turn it off.

  When Sheila Renfro was driving me back here from Denver, I tried once to ask her about what my mother said to her the night before, but all that business with nicknames made me forget the question. At dinner, I remembered.

  “What did my mother say to you?” I asked.

  “She asked what my intentions are.”

  “About what?”

  “You, I guess.”

  “You have intentions?”

  “Yes. I intend for you to eat that dinner I put in front of you. It’s getting cold.”

  I laughed, but Sheila Renfro didn’t laugh in return. She was serious.

  “What did you say?�
�

  “You know what I said. You were there. I told her it was none of her business.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She asked to talk to you again. Look, Edward—”

  “Call me E-Dog.”

  Sheila Renfro did not smile.

  “Look, I get it. She cares about you and she doesn’t know me. I’m a grown woman. I don’t care to be talked to like that by anyone.”

  “She hasn’t had a chance to know you.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if she knew anything about me, she’d know that you and I are more alike than we are different.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sheila Renfro stood up and collected the dishes, hers and mine. “I wish you’d eat more,” she said. She carried the dishes into the kitchen.

  “What do you mean?” I asked again.

  “I’m too tired tonight, Edward. Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”

  After dinner, I stepped outside to call my mother in private, because my questions for her were similar to the ones I asked Sheila Renfro. I didn’t get any better answers.

  “I’ll just be glad when you’re home, where you belong,” my mother said. After that, there wasn’t much left to talk about, so we said our good-byes and I went back inside.

  I didn’t see Sheila Renfro for very long after that. She suggested that we both turn in early and get some rest after the stress of the past few days, and that seemed logical to me.

  She walked me to room number four and let me in, and she reiterated (I love the word “reiterated”) that I was to call her if I had any trouble at all.

  “I will, Sheila Renfro.”

  Next, something extraordinary happened. She took one step toward me and stood on her tiptoes and she kissed me on the mouth. It was quick—she kissed like a bird pecks—but it was a real kiss-on-the-lips kiss, my first real one. A girl in high school let me kiss her once, but that was just so she could embarrass me in front of her friends.

  This was the real thing.