ever return to our city, we would welcome
him without bitterness. Maybe it means that we won=t try to change our name back to
Henryville. It might someday serve us well to leave it at Danieltown. I guess that would show
we really forgave him.
ABut the bitterness remains and I doubt he will find a warm welcome here should he visit
us again. We aren=t there yet. I hope I can leave my own bitterness behind before I die. Still, if
Daniel came into my diner, I would serve him and try to make him comfortable. Maybe he needs
mercy more than I do. I would not want to be him. I could not face myself.@
It was almost completely dark outside now. The light reflecting off the front window of
the diner made it hard to see the lights of cars on the highway barely sixty feet away.
AThank you for sharing your story with us.@ I placed money for our meals on the counter
beside my plate, leaving an ample tip.
I stretched out my arm and grasped the counterman=s man hand in mine, AThank you
again. You are a great man.@
David also shook the counterman=s hand as we bid him goodbye. David and I walked
slowly out of the diner into the parking lot. We paused before getting into David=s car. AA
strange story and a strange city,@ I remarked, Abut I suspect I could learn a great deal if I could
stay here for awhile.@
David chuckled. ABut you can=t stay and neither can I. We both have to move on. Get in
the car,@
We drove down the highway. The farther we drove, the less traffic there was, until we
were the only ones on the road. There were fewer and fewer houses. The night was moonless,
but the sky was full of stars so thick that some seemed to form paths of light across the sky. I did
not know where we were going, and I began to suspect that David was simply driving without
any specific destination.
We had both been quiet for some time when I turned and said, ADavid, if you are as tired
as I am, you should not be driving. When and where are we going to stop for the night?@
AWell, my friend,@ he answered, AI haven=t any idea where we are, or where there might
be a place to stay, so I suppose I might pull over by the side of the road and we could take a nap
here in the car.@
I was too tired to care where we slept, so David pulled on to the grass beside the highway
and stopped. I climbed into the back seat so that both he and I would have more room to stretch
out. David locked the doors and, despite the discomfort of our Alodgings,@ we were both soon
fast asleep.
And in my sleep, I dreamed of my parents and the home from which I had run away. I
saw my father standing in the backyard looking down the path along which I had fled. I saw
sadness in his eyes.
My mother came out and stood beside him. She put her hand on his shoulder. AHe will
come back someday. I know it.@
APerhaps,@ replied my father, Abut we are both growing old. There is less and less time
for his return if we are to see him when comes.@A
I heard my mother say, AIf we had been better parents, he would not have run away.@
AThere is no way to undo the past, dearest. We lived only as we had been taught to live.
We tried to avoid hurting him as our parents hurt us, and I suppose we did. We found our own
way to inflict pain as we tried to love him the best we could.
AI think as we are growing older together we may be learning more about love. Perhaps
his running away was his lesson to us. Will he have more to teach us if he comes back?@
AIf he comes back?@ my mother asked softly.
AYes, I know he will come back,@ my father asserted forcefully.
I awoke just as the sky had a slight tinge of yellow in the east. David still asleep. In the
dim light I saw tall trees on both sides of the road, but I could see no houses, no signs that we
were not alone.
I sat quietly to avoid waking David. My dream haunted me. Should I give up my search
for Robin and return at once to my parents? No, they were changing and I was changing, and I
knew that I still had much to learn on my strange adventure before I could return home. I had
promised Martha and Samuel that I would do my best to find their son, and I would keep my
promise.
But how odd, I thought, it was that there son had run away even though it was clear that
they loved him, and now they were longing for his return. And now my parents also longed for
their son who had run away because he thought they did not love him enough. At that point I
made a pledge to myself that as soon as I had been able to return Robin to his parents, I would
promptly return to mine.
But what if I could not find Robin? Then Martha and Samuel would want me to take his
place. For me to leave them might break their hearts, and I did not know what I would find if I
did return to my old house. After all, a dream is just that, a dream.
As the sky grew brighter I could better make out the forest through which we had been
driving, a forest much like the one behind my parents= house. I had gone from a path in a forest
to a road in a forest. And as with the path, I did not know where this road led.
At last David stirred and then woke up. By now the sun was higher, and I could see the
area around us clearly, though we were will in the shadow of the trees.
AGood morning, David,@ I said cheerily as David tried to rub the sleep from his eyes.
AGood morning,@ David half-mumbled, still trying to wake up. AI wish I had woken up
sooner. I had terrible dreams. My waking up thankfully ended them.@
AOdd,@ I said, AI had rather strange dreams too. They involved my parents. I ran away
from them because I was sure they did not love or want me. But in my dream they said that they
did love me. They missed me and wanted me back.@
David gave me a puzzled look. AYou ran away from your parents? How strange. I ran
away too, but not from my parents. And I dreamt about home last night.@
ABut you said your dream was terrifying,@ I countered. AMy dream was not terrifying,
just puzzling. And it disturbed me because I wondered when I woke up whether I should go back
to my parents right away.@
ANo, my dream was terrifying because I saw my family behaving in frightful ways toward
one another and toward others, and all because of me. I yelled at them to stop what they were
doing. But they ignored my pleas. It was as if I were not there.@
ABut you aren=t there,@ I said. AYou=re here. Maybe we both made a mistake in running
away. How strange that we both ran off, but if you did not run away from your parents, from
whom did you run away?@
AYes, from whom?@ David answered. A I guess I should tell you my story and then you
can judge for yourself.@
David sat up and leaned against a door of the car. He pulled his legs up and placed his
feet on the seat. Then he began his story.
David=s Story
No, I did not run away from the parents. My parents were killed in a boating accident
when I was nineteen. I was the oldest of four children. I had one brother James, who was two
years younger than I, and two sisters, Janet and Ann, who were 11 and 14.
My father had inherited a furniture factory, and, through hard work, skill, and luck, he
had doubled the factory=s output. He also built several stores to sell the furniture made in his
facto
ry. Our family became quite wealthy. We lived in a large house in a great city and had
another house by a lake in the country at which we spent many happy months in the summer. We
had servants, although my parents still made us children do chores around the house so that we
would learn how to take care of ourselves and appreciate the value of work. We had private
tutors instead of going to public schools. Overall, we were quite happy and pleased with our
lives.
But all that changed when my parents died. They left the factory and all their possessions
to the children to be shared equally. Even though I was nineteen at the time, I was still not old
enough to run the business. Our Uncle Ned and Aunt Harriet moved into our house to help raise
us and to make business decisions for us until we were old enough to make them for ourselves.
I had always liked Uncle Ned and Aunt Harriet. They were poor compared to ourselves,
but they lived comfortably and always treated us kindly when we visited them, which was
perhaps four or five times a year. We used to have them over for dinner on Thanksgiving and
Christmas, and they would often spend two weeks with us at our summer home. Though I
missed my parents terribly and sometimes cried myself to sleep thinking about them, I was glad
that we had an aunt and uncle to take care of us.
My aunt and uncle had been very kind to us before, but after they moved into our house,
they became different. It was not that they were cruel to us, but I think they fell in love with
having servants and the wealth that surrounded them. They had been simple people before, and I
our house and the money that it represented dazzled them. They had never been rich, and now
they were living as the wealthy live; and they wanted this life, not just while they took care of us,
but for the rest of their lives.
Had they asked us, we would have been happy to tell them they could live in our house as
long as they wanted to. But they never asked. They assumed control of the house and the
business as if they were my parents.
For the time, I was willing to allow them to run things. After all, I was still in school and
was going to start college in the fall. I thought that I should at least get an education before
taking charge of my family=s interests. Moreover, the family interests were not mine alone. My
parents had left them to all four of us children equally. James would be 21 two years after me,
and as each of us reached 21, we would be able to manage our own affairs. Or so I thought.
I went to the university in my home town since I wanted to be close to my sisters and
brother. The first year my uncle drove me to the campus in the morning, and he and my aunt
both came to get me after my classes were finished. Later that same year I hoped to get my own
car so they would not have to drive me. They could easily have asked one of the servants to
drive me, but my aunt and uncle insisted on doing it themselves.
When I wanted to buy a car, my uncle said that he got great pleasure from driving me, and
he wanted to continue the practice. I told him that, although I appreciated his driving me and
enjoyed his company, I wanted a car so that I could drive myself and could set my own schedule.
He got angry and told me that he would decide what was best for me, and I was not to have a car.
I saw that my uncle was also controlling my brother, making decisions for him, insisting
that he do things the way he wanted them done. Yet, he was invariably kind to my sisters. He
excused them from housework and gave them many presented. Yet, he fired their tutor and hired
one that would take orders directly from him. At first, I did not complain because I thought that
our uncle and aunt would change their behavior as we children grew older. But it soon became
clear that the uncle was becoming even more controlling rather than less.
The workers at the factory loved my father because he knew each one of them by name
and cared for them as if they were members of our family. If a worker or member of his family
took sick, my father would send a doctor to care for them, and he could continue to pay the
worker=s wages if he had to miss work because of the illness. He also welcomed suggestions
from the workers to improve production or quality, and he would pay a handsome bonus for the
best ideas.
But my uncle was interested only in how much money he could make, and so he refused
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