A longer embrace would only prolong the awkwardness.
Greg loosened his grip, pulled back enough to look into her eyes, and made the critical choice. He pressed his lips into the sweet hollow under her cheekbone. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
He was a mile down the road before he realized he’d forgot-
ten to say, “I love you.”
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He knew this route as he might a well-worn path to Grandma’s house. Pick any one of a handful of roads as long as the choice landed him on State Highway 53 North, then set the Jeep on automatic pilot toward Duluth. Cross from Superior to Duluth—from Wisconsin to Minnesota—over the scenic bridge, Great Lakes freighters anchored in the harbor on the right. Weave through Duluth’s white-knuckle hills. No way around it. One more gas-up—cheaper Minnesota gas— and restroom break before heading into the true North. Ten-thirty, an hour and a half until midnight, after a long day at work and last-minute packing. And the stuttering good- bye.
Greg took his position behind the steering wheel, deciding to use his freshly purchased twenty-ounce bottle of diet cola as a cold pack for his neck. He’d just negotiated a couple of hundred miles of deer crossings and was about to traverse a couple hundred more. One of the planet’s most successful ten- sion producers—deer in the headlights. Or worse, deer just outside the circle of light.
Two Harbors. How many more miles? He could stop at that cheesy-but-pleasingly-cheap motel on the outskirts and catch
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a few winks. Did he pack earplugs in his overnight bag? The foghorn may protect Great Lakes vessels from crashing on the shore but it also keeps weary adventurers from crashing for a good night’s sleep, whether in a tent, camper, or shore-view motel.
Greg flipped on the radio. “Okay, someone. Anyone. Elvis,
Backstreet Boys, Third Day, Rebecca St. James. Someone keep me awake a few more miles.”
He should enjoy the radio while he could. Once he crossed
the border, station choices would become scarcer than sale prices on Kobe beef.
Ugh. A stray grocery store thought. Distance couldn’t free
him of the place? Now, that was a depressing thought.
Although he couldn’t see any farther into the scenery than
the headlights would allow, Greg knew what lay beyond their reach. Sun-crisped grasses and wildflowers in the ditches. Postcard-worthy branches of tamaracks fluttering like green feathers against the solid porcupine quills of the white pines. Marshes and bogs. Bald hillsides stripped for the sake of the iron ore and the country’s thirst for steel. Thumbprint-sized lakes. Million-dollar vacation homes and scruffy cottages existing side by side.
Somewhere off to the right, deep in the shroud of blackness
of night, lay Lake Superior. Soon the road would swing near its shoreline again. Two Harbors. Three-hundred-dollar-a- night vacation condos and his choice, Wilsonaire Motor Lodge and Bakery. Bakery air, he didn’t mind. Far from it. But what marketing genius told these owners they’d make money adver- tising the smell of Wilsons?
It always gave him a laugh thinking about it. Tonight his
laugh didn’t reach any farther than his throat. Libby.
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Distance had no impact on freeing him from thoughts of the woman he left at home.
Distance is overrated.
Greg cranked open the driver’s side window. Maybe the night air would steer his thoughts in a more productive direction.
Smack! His temple stung from whatever had flown in the window. There, crawling on the dashboard, a June bug the size of the Medjool dates the produce department carried dur- ing the holidays. An insect Lacey would have dubbed “super gross.” He couldn’t disagree. Nasty things, June bugs. Had this one not heard it was August already?
His instant reaction had been to brush it off when he felt it assault his temple. Apparently, that’s a declaration of war in June-bug speak. Flying, dive-bombing, no-respect-for-a- person’s-personal-space warfare. He slowed the car more abruptly than was safe, pulled off onto the gravel shoulder, and opened his car door.
“Okay,” he told it. “You or me. One of us is leaving this vehicle.”
Alex and Zack were probably fighting insects four times this large and threatening. Or collecting them. Or studying them. Or analyzing their mating habits. Greg just wanted this one gone.
The dome light of the Jeep stayed on while the door was open. Nice feature. Normally. Tonight it became a marquee for a mosquito convention and a neon sign for moths and various other winged things.
“I love it when a plan comes together,” he told the damp, musky night air. “By contrast, this is exactly how my plans have gone the last few years.” He stood alone at the edge of the highway, watching most of the entomologic population of the Upper Midwest congregate in his party vehicle. “I try to solve
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a problem and create forty more. Forty?” He eyed what was beginning to look like a sick mosquito orgy. “They’re multiply- ing as I speak.”
A car whizzed past him so close the draft ruffled the hairs
on the back of his neck.
“Thank you for not stopping,” he called after it. “No, sin-
cerely, I’m grateful you didn’t see me paralyzed by a bug and his inbred cousins twice removed.”
Is it only bad to talk to yourself if you talk out loud?
He could cut back on that, couldn’t he?
Greg tried to recall what technique he and Libby used when
they convinced Zack to give up his imaginary friend, Tank. Or were they truly successful? At their advice, did Zack plant his feet solidly in reality or did he just stop talking to Tank out loud?
“I will never leave you nor forsake you,” he said, quoting his
invisible but very much real Friend. The reminder became a prayer. “God, you promised.”
Another set of car lights came upon him from the south.
The car slowed as it neared Greg. He turned, faced the center line, and motioned the driver on with a wave that said, “No big deal. I can handle it.”
When the Good Samaritan’s taillights faded into the night,
Greg opened the remaining doors of the Jeep, rolled down all the windows, and found the little button on the doorframe near the steering wheel. Depressing it, he snuffed the dome light.
“Take that.”
Cocooned in darkness now, he could only hope the insects
would pack up their instruments and go home. If not a yard light or porch light, they might seek out the few vacancies in front of his still-lit headlights.
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He’d drive the rest of the way with all the windows open to promote insect escape.
Mile after monotonous mile ticked by. He lost a fast-food wrapper to the vortex created by driving with open windows. As time elapsed, his cola lost its fizz and its ability to cool. With Two Harbors still too many miles away, Greg rational- ized that he could leave one eye open and shut the other for a few seconds. Then switch.
The crunch of gravel woke him.
“Good night, Charlie!” He wrenched the steering wheel and swung the Jeep back into his own lane from where it had drifted. Heart pounding, eyes bulging, he scanned the traffic in his rearview mirror. Nothing. Grace of God. He could have killed someone.
Lacey’s face flashed on the big screen of his memory. “In Libby’s eyes, I already did.”
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The key to his motel room was weighted with what looked like an artificial musky lure, minus barbs. Clever in a tour- isty overkill sort of way. Since his last stay at this particular establishment, management must have changed hands or had a visit from the health department. The bedspreads looked almost new and almost clean.
He dropped his overnight bag on the nearer bed, opting t
o
drop his body face down onto the one closer to the bathroom and the air-conditioner unit mounted high on the back wall.
“A vacancy. On a Friday night. Thanks, Lord.”
Greg used his right foot to nudge the heel of his left shoe
until it plopped noisily onto the cheesy carpet. Repeated with a stockinged left foot to the right shoe. Untying laces was a job for the energetic.
He buried his face in the crevice between two pillows, arms
flat against his sides. The coroner could find him just like that in the morning, should the scare on the highway cause a delayed-reaction heart attack.
The aged air-conditioner compressor wasn’t exactly white
noise. But it did help mask the rhinoceros snore leaking through the thin wall between Greg’s room and the one next
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door. He fought a twinge of jealousy that some unnamed motel guest was deep in slumber.
“I’m right behind you, buddy.”
But he wasn’t.
Not a half hour later. Nor an hour. Not after peeling off his jeans and shirt. Not after two trips to the bathroom and a swig of iron-laced water to wash down a Tylenol PM capsule. Not after checking the setting on the alarm clock four times and his backup wristwatch alarm.
“A guy can tell the difference between heartburn and a heart attack, can’t he?”
He sat up in bed and propped the pillows behind him so he could lean against the pressed wood headboard. A deep rum- bling clawed its way up his throat and out his open mouth in the form of a belch.
“Excuse me,” he apologized before realizing he’d offended no one. “Well, that’s it then. Simple heartburn.” But the heavi- ness in his chest lingered.
Finding sleep impossible the night before heading into the Quetico was nothing new. Excitement often claimed the vic- tory. Tonight, excitement ran second or third behind other emotions. Shame for not telling Libby the truth. And what’s the word that means self-loathing but not quite so violent? Mild self-loathing? That’s like being a little bit pregnant. He couldn’t lose another night’s sleep to what-ifing the day he sent Lacey to school. He’d sought and received forgiveness from the One who—unlike Greg—knew the end from the beginning. He’d sought but not received forgiveness from the one he’d vowed to love and cherish.
Is that all he’d vowed? Maybe she thought he pledged to make her happy every day of her life or to shield her from dis- appointment or prevent grief from touching their family. If so, she was wrong. He was incapable of any of that.
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All he could do was love her. Not enough. Never enough.
The mercury-vapor lamp in the parking lot outside his win-
dow cast eerie shadows around the room when filtered through less-than-classy fiberglass drapes. If he closed just one eye, then the other . . .
********
“This is the day, this is the day that the Lord hath made,
that the Lord hath made” sounded less than comforting at the loudest volume setting on the clock radio’s alarm function.
“Can it!” Greg growled as he slapped the offender into
pre-dawn silence. “So I escaped a heart attack last night only to have a Christian radio station give me one this morning? Nice.”
His neck ached. Reaching for the alarm had sent a spasm of
pain across his shoulder and down his arm. He’d slept folded. Not good for the spine. Could have been worse. He could have slept long enough. Imagine how stiff his neck would have been then.
Greg sat on the edge of the bed. He needed to get on the
road. But a hot shower might loosen his cramped muscles.
His hair still damp from his shower, Greg checked out at
the front desk, then wandered into the Wilsonaire Bakery to make his breakfast selection.
One would think a motel/bakery combo would offer conti-
nental breakfast at the very least. A Danish and coffee? Donut? One lousy free donut?
“What’s your best seller?” he asked the flour-dusted woman
behind the counter. Mrs. Wilson, he guessed.
“All of ’em,” she said, her filmy eyes giving away her age
despite the jet-black hair that shouted, “However old you think I am, shave at least a dozen years off that number, mister!”
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He eyed the filled and frosted long johns. Couldn’t help chuckling. He almost had “filled and frosted” his long johns on the winter camping trip with his boys—then probably ten and eleven—when the wolf pack wandered into their terri- tory, or vice versa. Northern Wisconsin gray wolves lost their endangered species status, huh? Plenty of them. Is that right? How lucky for the Holden family.
The wolves lost interest. Eventually. The boys stuck to Greg like leeches the rest of the weekend. Had he ever admitted that his fear level matched—if not exceeded—theirs? Wild animals. Fascinating, but unpredictable.
“Never underestimate the beauty of predictability.” “What’s that you say?” the bakery woman asked. “Two chocolate frosted long johns, please. Unfilled.” “That it? You want coffee?”
“You have coffee?”
“By the cup or the gallon. We’ll fill your Thermos or can- teen, if you want.”
“Great. That’s new.”
She dropped two portions of bakery heaven into a white waxed paper bag. “New?”
“Free coffee. I’ve stayed here before. Under the old management.”
“Did I say anything about free?” Her mouth puckered and her eyebrows drew up into the folds of her forehead.
He pushed aside the foot in his mouth and said, “Sorry. I—”
“Oh, don’t take life so serious, my friend.” She handed Greg the bag. “Of course it’s free. Help yourself.” She pointed toward a giant pump Thermos near the exit.
He reached into his back right pocket for his wallet. “How much for the long johns?”
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“If you were a Wilsonaire Motel guest last night, you’re enti-
tled to one free bakery item.”
“Okay. Great. And for the second one?”
She leaned over the glass display case, her ampleness resting
just above a harvest of glazed donuts. “It’s complimentary.” “Excuse me?”
“Look, mister, you gonna analyze my marketing methods
or you gonna take the loot and run?”
Greg marveled that a crazy, older-than-she-wants-to-admit
woman could lift his mood a little. The pound of flesh he’d gain from the baked goods would be worth the sacrifice.
By now, he wasn’t the only customer. Courtesy and an
eagerness to head even farther north prevented his sticking around to see how Mrs. Wilsonaire treated them. He rested his overnighter on the floor at his feet and set the white bag on the counter while he grabbed a cup of coffee—just one— and capped it with a plastic lid. He retrieved his two bags and headed out the door.
Mental note: Plan a stop at Wilsonaire Motor Lodge and
Bakery next time through. If there is a next time.
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Dawn sneaks up on a person who is locked into a track on the highway of monotony. Far off to the right of his vehicle, the horizon emerged slowly, as if the sun were suspicious of what the day might hold. The Controller of the universe cranked up the dimmer switch in tiny increments until Greg’s headlights became redundant. Another cloudless day. Swell. No clouds, no rain. No rain, no campfires. Too bad. As much as Greg respected the fire bans and their necessity, he did some of his best thinking near a campfire.
Maybe before the trip was over, the Quetico would get enough rain for the ban to be lifted. Did he dare pray for a convincing deluge? Would it be worth it? He could make a fire in the fireplace at home if he wanted to think. Home. Th
e word just didn’t feel right these days.
Greg wondered what Libby would be doing at this moment— the first few minutes of dawn. Still in bed. No question. Was this—? It was. The first time the house was empty for more than a day’s stretch. Libby was alone. Completely. His boys wouldn’t drop in until the new semester started, and probably only then to show pictures of their summer’s adventure and beg their mother to do a hundred loads of laundry.
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God, I don’t know what she’ll need while I’m gone, other than
You.
How arrogant of him! To think that Libby might struggle
in the absence of her husband. As if he’d meant anything sig- nificant to her recently. She’d probably wake a couple of hours from now feeling nothing but relief.
What I am to her right now and what I want to be are polar
opposites, Lord. Any hope of a cosmic miracle while I’m gone? A little shock-and-awe in the polarization department?
In response to the lack of a direct answer, Greg reached to
turn on the radio. An oldies station responded first to the seek feature. Two words into the song—“Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover”—Greg knew that was a mistake.
Seek. Elevator music. Seek. Screaming guitars and angry
drums in simultaneous seizures. Seek. “He’s always been faith- ful to me.” Sara Groves.
Better.
What am I doing? Running? Deception is hardly a desirable char-
acter trait. I should go home and tell Libby the truth.
Greg rubbed his hand over day-old whiskers. “Yeah, I can
picture how that would go.”
“Libby, can we talk?”
“Sure, my beloved. You mean the world to me. If something’s on
your mind, I’m ready to listen.”
Rewind.
“Libby, can we talk?”
“What about?”
“I . . . I need a change.”
“Change? You mean, with us?”
“With me. And us. I’m not happy.”
“You’re not happy?”
“I know. What right do I have to feel more miserable than you
do?”
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“What’s that supposed to mean?”
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