They Almost Always Come Home

by Cynthia Ruchti

  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.

  My fingers brush against a long, thin, paper-wrapped card-

  board tube at the bottom of my purse. Oh, no! I didn’t even think about—

  While Frank answers the border patrol’s questions about

  explosive materials and firearms, I clutch the neck rest on Jen’s passenger seat and pull myself toward her ear.

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  “Jen!”

  “What?”

  “Tampons!”

  “Not to worry. I packed extra. Stuffed them in the foot of my sleeping bag, just in case.”

  “Thank the Lord.”

  “At least,” she adds, “I think that’s the bag I’ll be using.” We both eye the man in the driver’s seat. It could be an interesting first night in the wilderness.

  ********

  “Lib?” Jen’s whisper slides out of the side of her mouth. We’re both in the backseat now. Somehow that’s where we landed after the stop for gas.

  “What?” I counter with my own sideswipe.

  “You sighed just now. Something new? It almost looked as if you held your breath until we cleared customs.”

  I angle my body farther toward the back of the vehicle, hop- ing my words will dissipate in the air and not reach Frank’s ears. His thick fingers tap the steering wheel to the rhythm of something twangy burping its way out of the radio speak- ers. The danger of his hearing us over that noise is parchment thin.

  I begin, “Frank’s got it in his head that rules and regula- tions are more challenge than guide.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “You have?”

  “When he’s driving, we don’t have to worry about whiplash at intersections with a light or sign. He’s yet to come to a com- plete stop. And isn’t there some well-publicized rule about not passing on the right of a slow-moving vehicle?”

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  I stifle a chuckle. Greg didn’t inherit those habits from his

  father. I always feel safe with Greg behind the wheel. That’s a blessing, I guess. One I haven’t thought about for a while.

  Safe. I wonder if Greg’s computer thesaurus lists dispassion-

  ate as a synonym for safe.

  Was I always a half-empty thinker? How far back would I

  have to trace to find the point at which I lost hope? It wasn’t an episode. My bucket of hope for us—Greg and me—sported a mere pinhole. That’s why it’s taken so long for me to run dry— the reason I didn’t walk away three years ago.

  The honeymoon. Did it start then? Would the pinhole have

  sealed itself over if Greg hadn’t flipped on the television in the motel when we were done?

  If I’d spoken up rather than pouted, what might have hap-

  pened? What if I’d told him, “Greg, honey, could we just hold each other until we fall asleep?” I can’t imagine he would have refused me. Not his style. Maybe he didn’t know how much I needed the comfort of his steady breathing, the reassuring weight of his arm across my middle, the coordination of our pulses.

  Somewhere along the line, I stopped expecting what I

  needed. Now I expect I’ll be disappointed. And I am. That’s an easy expectation to meet. And then, of course, Lacey.

  Jen’s voice breaks through. “Are you asleep?”

  “What?”

  “You sleeping or thinking?”

  “Thinking.”

  “Is that wise?”

  Jen deserves her own talk show. Or radio counseling

  program.

  “You’re missing some great scenery,” she says. “We’re

  through Fort Frances and heading into the true North.”

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  I lift my head and glance out the window. The road isn’t a four-lane ribbon of asphalt anymore. It’s a thread. One lane each way. Smooth enough, but almost absent of shoulders. Road, rock, water. Nothing much between. A glacier-thrown pottery “fence” of gray, lichen-covered rocks keeps Rainy River and Rainy Lake from washing over the road.

  Four hundred miles south, the pine trees are thick-necked linebackers. Here, many of the pines that cling to the rocks are more like pool cues with shaved chenille pipe-cleaner arms. Their branches start high on their trunks, as if their arms extend from narrow chins. No necks.

  Did you notice that, Greg? When you passed this place, did you notice the skeletal trees? What was on your mind? Did you know already you weren’t coming home? How long ago did you decide? One of these days, I’ll know.

  One of these days, the truth will come out. He’ll call home, say he’s sorry but he couldn’t take it anymore and hopes the boys and I will forgive him. Or he’ll slip up and get caught on film—convenience store or ATM surveillance footage, in the crowd at a high school football game in his new hometown, on the video phone of Greg’s new neighbor—a computer geek— who stumbles onto the “My Dad’s Missing” website Alex will create.

  One of these days I’ll know if I have penance to pay for thinking such thoughts, for wasting time on anger when I should have spent it on worry. Or grief.

  I can’t begin to process this until I know what happened. Should I feel sorry for you, Greg? Or sorry for me?

  Frank powers down his driver’s side window and spits into the wind.

  “Frank!”

  “It was just chewing gum. Lighten up.”

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  Jen presses her lips into a thin line. Or are they zippered

  shut? I, on the other hand, can’t make mine stic
k together. “No doubt Canada has rules against littering.”

  “It’s biodegradable.” The rearview mirror captures his

  expression. Deadpan.

  Biodegradable? That’s his reasoning? Number one, are we

  so sure? And number two—

  Jen puts a hand on my knee, as if holding me back from

  jumping over the seat in front of me. Not that I would.

  She’s right. I can’t let irritation over Frank’s habits override

  my gratitude.

  She taught me that lesson the first time years ago, when her

  every morning began with a prayer of gratitude for the breath of life.

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  A s the hash marks on the road register our progress like ticks on a stopwatch, I fight with a voice that seems to rise from the moan of tires on asphalt.

  What do you think you’re doing? And how dare you involve these innocents?

  I need Frank and his expertise. I could do without his cre- ative driving practices, but so far we’ve avoided blue-and-red bubble lights, sirens, and a need for airbags. I stare at the back of his head, with his loved-on baseball cap firmly settled on top. Little tufts of wiry gray hair poke out from under the cap near his ears and along his collar.

  What would he do today if he weren’t here on this misad- venture? Get a haircut? Wander down to Hardee’s for coffee with his buddies? Tag along with Pauline to her weekly visit to the herbologist in whose hands she trusts everything from her skin care to her digestive function? I’m sure Pauline has good qualities. Thinking I’d find them in the mere two dozen years I’ve known her must have been rushing it. Lord, bless Frank for putting up with her.

  I wonder if Frank looks at me and asks God to bless Greg.

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  Dangerous thoughts. I shift my daydreaming to Jen, who

  tugs the seatbelt away from her throat.

  “So, what do you think?” she says. “ ‘Ninety-nine Bottles of

  Beer on the Wall’ or ‘Ten Little Monkeys’ or ‘The Song That Never Ends’? Your choice.”

  “We’re not singing.”

  “Not even ‘It’s a Small World After All’? That would make

  the time fly.”

  I’ve heard of people who need to seek a therapist’s help to

  get that song out of their head following a trip to Disney World. It’s playing catch-me-if-you-can in my brain tunnels already.

  “Jen, if you start, be prepared to thumb a ride home on a

  logging truck.”

  “Then quit touching me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Are too. Frank, she’s on my side.”

  He doesn’t respond to our child’s play. With feigned dis-

  gust, I snatch the hem of my denim shirt back onto my half of the seat and make a show of plastering myself against the door on my side. “Happy?”

  “Always.”

  And she is.

  As challenging as they were for her, her cancer years merely

  made the sound of her life more musical as the water bubbled and bounced and sparkled over and around the rocks thrown in her stream’s path.

  Mine? Sluggish water doesn’t gurgle and sing. It lies there,

  breeding mosquitoes and dull scum. Was that depression? Should I have listened to Greg when he suggested I might need the help of a professional to conquer it? Instead, I resented the implication. What if I’d found a way—through whatever means—to make magnificent waves over the obstacles rather than allow them to form impenetrable dams?

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  Jen had been looking for a whiskey barrel and a home church the day we met in the garden center. A whiskey barrel in which to grow flowers, and a home church in which to grow her young but exuberant faith.

  What made her think she could ask me a question about church? In faith matters, she was bold as a Magic Marker. Still is. Some days I feel as if I’m writing the story of mine in chalk.

  “Your tote bag,” she’d explained that first day. “It’s what gave me the confidence to ask. ‘Women of Faith.’ Pretty clear advertisement.”

  A better advertisement than my life at the time.

  I wrote our church’s web address on a corner of my grocery list, tore it off, and handed it to her. Jenika thanked me and clocked me. That’s the phrase, isn’t it? Clocked me means she knocked me flat, right? She said, “Do you mind if I pray for you?”

  The newcomer, a stranger five minutes earlier, wanted to pray for me? Maybe she’d find our church a tad mild- mannered for her tastes.

  What could I say? “Sure.”

  “Lord, please bless Libby today. Clear the path ahead of her. Fill her with Your presence and Your joy. And may she find answers waiting where she thought there were only questions. In Jesus’ Name, amen.”

  “Amen,” I agreed more deeply than I thought I could. I brought years of faith experience to the table. She brought life. Joy. Exuberance. I like to think I offered our friendship the benefit of wisdom, but somewhere along the line—remarkably close to the time my marriage grew stale—that shifted to her camp.

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  I mentored her—isn’t that a laugh?—for the first couple of

  years. We met weekly for Bible study and prayer. I knew my stuff. She infused it with life.

  Then, the invasion. A small but powerful army of cancer

  cells invaded her left breast. We cried together. She stopped crying before I did.

  Somewhere in the process, we switched roles. I blame can-

  cer. That’s an easy option. Who would side with cancer? It made her stronger. Her spiritual growth spurt outdistanced me.

  I shrank. She thrived, disease and all.

  I might have caught up with her, but Lacey died that year.

  Jen is tugging at her seatbelt again and trying a different

  position for her legs. It’s my fault she’s uncomfortable. No one has to tell me that.

  “Thank you for doing this, Jen.”

  “Doing what? Backing off on the singing idea?”

  Always the comedian. “For coming on the trip. For sacrific-

  ing so much.”

  “Don’t make me nobler than I am. Only part of this is for

  you. And Greg, of course. The rest of it is for me.”

  She already won her lifetime membership in the Courage

  Club. What more could she need to gain?

  I’m the one who’s starting at square one.

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  A s we fly along the last few miles of Canadian asphalt, I finger my sons’ photos—candid shots from their senior year in high school. Their hairstyles have changed radically since these were taken. Not their smiles, though, or their Greg Holden eyes.

  I used to carry a picture of Lacey in my wallet. But I created too many scenes in checkout lines. When asked to produce my driver’s license for identification, I’d flip open my wallet and there—in her electric blue gymnastics leotard—was my darling daughter.

  Ma’am, are you okay? Can I help you? Ma’am? Someone call the manager!

  Too many times. Too many tears.

  It’s better for everyone if her pictures stay tucked away in my lingerie drawer.

  Greg couldn’t have known sending her to school that day was the wrong thing to do. He thought he was being a good dad. Isn’t he famous for that? Good dads don’t cave in to their preteen daughters’ mood fluctuations, right?

  I wish I’d been home. I would have let her skip school that once. Ginger tea sometimes helped me. We would have talked

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  about the glories of heating pads and Midol and marked a but- terfly or something on the calendar to remind us of her first sign of approaching womanhood.

  How would Greg have known to do something like that?

  I can’t blame him. But the tr
uth of the matter is that she’d

  still be alive if he’d been a little more sympathetic to a girl’s cramps.

  ********

  My mind never listens to me. Against my better judgment,

  it thrusts me back three decades. I’m eleven and in agony.

  “Libby, unlock that door and get out of the bathroom.”

  “I can’t, Mom.”

  “Are you mouthing off again? I told you to get out here this

  minute.”

  “Something’s wrong with me.”

  “Save it for someone who cares. I have a date and I need my

  hot rollers.”

  The smell of stale nicotine slithers under the bathroom

  door. I’m already close to barfing. That doesn’t help.

  The gruesome pamphlet from sex-ed class told me this was

  coming. I thought it spewed way too much information. Now I wish it had told me more, the kinds of details a regular mom might tell her daughter.

  “Lib-by!”

  Sure, Mom. I’ll just go pass out in my room.

  ********

  I should have grabbed Lacey’s picture before we left. That’s

  what good moms do. Jen and Frank would have waited. I don’t have two children. I have three. One I can’t hold, even if I could afford the airfare.

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  “Libby?”

  “What?”

  “Did you hear what Frank said?” Jen’s question bears no edge.

  How should I answer her? I heard rumbling. I didn’t hear words. “No.”

  “He says this gas station up ahead is our last chance before the ranger station.”

  “Last chance for—?”

  Frank chimes in. “Indoor plumbing. Soft drinks. Cheetos. Floors. Walls. Doors.”

  “Okay, I get it.” I’d kicked off my shoes while reliving junior high. Time to put them on again and face the current crisis. As I open the door on my side of the Blazer, warm air rushes in. Warm bordering on stifling. In Canada? Who would have thought?

  I can’t help wonder if a few days ago Greg walked over the gravel now crunching beneath my feet. Did his hand touch this door handle? Did he talk to the flannel-clad clerk behind the counter? As Frank heads for the men’s room, I’m tempted to tell him, “Watch for clues.”