The Last Road Trip

by Gareth Crocker

  Ezra refilled the cup, before deciding it was safe to join Jack on the bench.

  ‘Ezra Fall,’ he volunteered.

  ‘Jack. Jack Everson.’

  Ezra pointed to the sea. ‘How many others were in your boat, Jack?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I saw the coastguard out on the water. Your boat must’ve gone down. How many others were there? Or were you alone on board?’

  Jack looked back at him and shook his head. ‘No boat.’

  Ezra frowned and realised that the man must be in shock. ‘Forgive me, Jack, but you must’ve been on a boat. How else could you have got here?’

  ‘How else?’

  Ezra nodded. ‘Yes. What else could’ve got you here?’

  Jack looked down at the bench and gently ran his hand across its smooth surface. ‘I married my wife here. Right here. It was a beautiful morning.’

  He then looked up at Ezra, his eyes at half mast. ‘I loved her so much.’

  Ezra’s frown deepened. It was clear to him that Jack was in a bad way. He reached back into his overalls and grabbed hold of his phone. ‘We need to let the coastguard know you’re here. I’ll get you some help, Jack. Maybe they’ve already rescued the others.’

  As Ezra searched for the emergency numbers that he knew were on his phone, Jack whispered something.

  ‘What was that?’ Ezra asked.

  ‘I wasn’t planning on making it. I was just going to stop when I got tired. But I kept thinking of her.’

  Ezra could only shrug. He had no idea what Jack was trying to tell him.

  ‘You asked what got me here.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Wanting to live,’ he said slowly, looking up at the sky. ‘Wanting to try for something.’

  Dropping his chin to his chest, Jack closed his eyes. The last face he saw before exhaustion swept him away, at last, was that of the woman who had kept him swimming in a storm-tossed sea that would have claimed most men half his age. A woman who was standing at the top of a hill, at the edge of an abandoned drive-in, bathed in the glow of a star-filled sky.

  Epilogue

  Twenty-three months later

  Jack leaned forward and peered out the window of the hotel lobby. ‘It’s starting to snow again. Should we call for a cab?’

  Elizabeth glanced across at Rosie. ‘I don’t mind. What do you think?’

  Rosie, now almost two years into an unlikely walking addiction, shook her head. ‘It’s only five or six blocks. Let’s walk.’

  Jack shrugged and then reached for the hotel umbrellas that were propped up in front of the reception desk. He held open the door and together they headed out into the gentle snowfall. As they crossed the road, mindful of the slippery surface, Jack reached for Elizabeth’s hand.

  ‘Snowing in London,’ Rosie remarked. ‘It’s a cliché.’

  ‘But a good one,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘I used to have a snow globe of Buckingham Palace when I was growing up. Dreamed of coming here for years.’

  She looked over at Jack and knew at once that he hadn’t heard a word she had said.

  He caught her eye and blinked as if to clear his mind. ‘Sorry, Lizzie. What was that?’

  She regarded him for a moment and then squeezed his hand. ‘Nothing. Just trying to make conversation.’

  Abandoning any further attempts at small talk, they walked the rest of the way in silence. When they finally passed through the old gate, Jack was not really surprised to discover that the church was almost full.

  Just what was it about Sam that people so responded to? He had lived in England for only a short while, and yet every face that Jack saw carried the wounds of Sam’s passing.

  Seated in the front row, Sarah turned around and smiled warmly through her tears. Both Elizabeth and Rosie waved in return and Jack dipped his head. Elizabeth’s gaze then wandered over to the girl sitting beside Sarah. It took her a moment to realise that she was looking at Casey, Sam’s granddaughter. She was at least a foot taller now and her hair had been braided with brightly coloured beads. ‘Look how much she’s grown up,’ Elizabeth whispered.

  Before Jack could offer a reply, Sarah gestured to the minister, and he took his place at the pulpit. After an opening hymn and a short prayer, he unbowed his head and began to speak.

  ‘Friends, we always want more time. Time to do the things we promised ourselves when we were young. To say the words that need saying. But so often our time runs out before we get the chance. Our deepest regrets are always the things we leave between ourselves and those we hold most dear to us. Our thoughts. Our fears. Our love.’

  The minister looked out over the congregation and then raised a finger in defiance. ‘But not today.’

  Nodding, he straightened his glasses. ‘In the short time I knew Sam, I was constantly astounded by how openly he spoke and how you always knew where you stood with him. A fact made even more surprising when you consider that Sam came from a guarded generation. One that cherished privacy and circumspection. To tell you the truth, Sam inspired me to be more open with my own family. With my children … It’s a debt I know I’ll never be able to repay.’

  As the minister’s voice wavered, Jack looked away.

  ‘Seeing you all here today, it’s remarkable to think that just two short years ago most of you had never met Sam. The fact that he’s been able to have such an impact on your lives in such a short space of time is testament to the man he was. Friendly, generous, kind, always there to lend a hand. He had an appetite for getting involved in the community, as most of you experienced first hand. I could go on for a long time about Sam, but I know that’s not what he would’ve wanted. He wasn’t that sort of person. Instead, my job here today is straightforward. I’m here to see that his final wish is fulfilled.’

  The minister then turned his head and signalled to a young man sitting to the right of the pulpit. The man stood up and walked behind a curtain. He returned wheeling out a large television. As he switched it on, Sam’s smiling face appeared on screen.

  ‘Oh God,’ Elizabeth whispered, bringing a hand to her mouth.

  Sitting up in his hospital bed, tethered to a cluster of drips, Sam looked into the camera and offered up a warm smile.

  ‘Hello, everyone,’ he began. ‘I suppose there’s every chance that I’m speaking to an empty church right now, but I hope that’s not the case. Not because I want people to mourn my passing, but because there’s one last message I’d like to share with you. Something I learned too late in life. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to pass it on.’

  Sam leaned forward and cleared his throat.

  ‘If you’re living with regrets – with things that you’ve put away in a box but that maybe keep you awake at night – I want to tell you that you still have time enough to make things right. Of course I know that life isn’t a storybook. I also know that some of our mistakes are too far gone to be hauled back in. That maybe you’ve lost things that will remain beyond your grasp. But I also know that my life would’ve been so much better spent if I had just been trying for something. My final wish for all of you is that you realise, while you still have time, that it’s the trying that matters. Maybe it’s all that matters.’

  Sam’s eyes glistened on screen, the silence punctuated by the sound of a heart monitor.

  ‘Before I came out here with Sarah and Casey, I was fortunate enough to go on a remarkable journey with four friends. A thousand-mile road trip, which not only led me to my family but feels increasingly like a dream. I could sit here and try to put into words how grateful I am for that trip and how much it has changed the remaining days of my life, but I think my words will come up short.’

  With that, Sam took a breath and then slowly pulled away the blankets that covered his legs. Moving to the side of the bed, he took a moment to steady himself before pushing up to a standing position. Despite being in obvious pain, he wheeled his drip stand to one side and then winked into the camera. A moment later Casey stepped int
o view and placed a small music player down on his bed. She pressed a button and Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Working on a Dream’ began to play.

  And then, just as he had once done at the top of a faraway hill, in the company of his closest friends, Samuel Lightfoot danced one last time.

  Author’s Note I

  Writers can be a strange lot.

  It may interest you to know that once I’ve completed a novel, many of my characters continue to live on in my mind. Some, rather successfully. Others, less so. Consider the case of one of my favourite characters, the ever-brave Lieutenant Rogan Brock (from my first novel, Finding Jack). After surviving the horrors of the Vietnam War, Rogan is unable to fully reintegrate back into society and, at the end of the book, ends up as a lone night-shift security guard at a chemical factory.

  As I write this – almost a decade after the fact – he is still there. Sitting in a dark shed, all alone. I can sometimes feel him patrolling the factory, his thoughts stuck in a war he can’t escape. I don’t mind admitting that his fate is a source of considerable distress for me.

  The good news is that, since completing The Last Road Trip, Jack and Rogan have become firm friends and, at last, there is hope for the lieutenant’s future.

  I know how very odd this must seem. But when you’ve spent months – and, in some cases, years – working with a set of characters, there comes a point when they begin to lift off the page and assume their own identities. A sort of Frankenstein-ing occurs. They start to make their own decisions, write their own dialogue, express opinions that are not those of the author. In essence, they become their own people. When that happens, it’s almost inevitable that they will live on beyond the last page of their story. They simply can’t be turned off.

  I loved writing The Last Road Trip and have extracted tremendous joy out of watching Jack, Sam, Rosie, Lizzie, Albert and even Pilot come to life. I hope you enjoyed the journey. If you ever want to catch up with the gang, just buy me a cup of coffee. They’re all still here. Even The Galaxy is still open for business. In case you’re wondering, The Shawshank Redemption’s playing.

  Finally, and for the record, The Last Road Trip is not entirely a story about a group of elderly friends who embark on one last journey together to address unresolved issues in their lives.

  It’s a story about life, yours and mine, and about always having something to try for. Age has precious little to do with it.

  Author’s Note II

  In 2013, Diana Nyad made history by becoming the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without the protection of a shark cage. Two things, in particular, mark this achievement as extraordinary.

  It’s a swim of 177 kilometres. And Diana Nyad was sixty-four at the time.

  To put this in context – and just in case you doubted Jack’s prowess in the water – his swim from Blouberg to Robben Island is less than eight kilometres.

  Acknowledgements

  I am indebted to my team at Penguin Random House and to my editor, the brilliant and wise Jenefer Shute. The passion you brought to the edit has made all the difference.

  To my wife and children, thank you for allowing me the time and freedom to write my novels.

  I’m nothing without you.

  MAYATGVTW.

  Read the Opening of Finding Jack, by Gareth Crocker

  Prologue

  Chicago

  12 January 1972

  The wind sulked around Hampton Lane cemetery like a child lamenting the loss of a favorite toy. It stirred the crisp autumn leaves lining the many cobbled paths, but did little more than tow them along slowly, like condemned souls being dragged to the afterlife.

  Standing among the rolling fields of dead in a sea of granite and marble tombstones, Fletcher Carson trudged toward the foot of a tree where his life lay buried under two stark stone crosses. His wife, Abigail, had been such a positive person that she had seldom discussed death, a reluctance underlined by the loss of her parents barely a year ago. Only during the drawing up of their wills did it emerge that she wished to be interred under the shade of a maple tree with only a simple cross to mark her final resting place. Her epitaph was every word as humble as she was. It read:

  Here rests Abigail Carson, loving wife and mother.

  May her light never fade from our hearts.

  Kelly’s cross was half the size of her mother’s. It carried only her name and the dates of her short life. When it came down to it, and despite being a writer for most of his working life, Fletcher hadn’t been able to commission a message. The right words, he was certain, did not exist.

  “Fletcher.” A voice drifted toward him. “I thought I’d find you here.”

  Fletcher immediately recognized the broad Southern drawl. It was Marvin Samuels, his editor and possibly only remaining friend in the world.

  “You look good,” Marvin remarked, but the inflection in his voice suggested otherwise. At just under six feet, Fletcher Carson was by no means a particularly tall man, but there was a stoop in his posture now that belied his true height. He was blessed with smooth olive skin, thick black hair, and hazel eyes like large nuggets of carved oak. A distinctive cleftlike scar in the middle of his chin did little to detract from his good looks. At twenty-nine, he was in the prime of his life, but the burden of the recent months weighed heavily on him. His athletic build remained, but his face carried the expression of a man who had wandered into a dark labyrinth and long since abandoned hope of ever finding his way out.

  “I read somewhere that the dead can hear you,” Fletcher said, staring at the ground.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “They say that if someone they really loved visits their grave, they can hear that person’s thoughts. It can be raining or blowing a gale around the cemetery, but just around their grave, everything becomes still. That’s when they’re listening.”

  “I hope it’s true.”

  Fletcher slipped his hands into his pockets. “Why have you come here, Marvin?”

  “Why do you ask questions you know the answers to?”

  “We’ve been through this; there’s nothing left to discuss. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  “You know your mother’s going out of her mind with worry? I can’t keep making excuses for you. When are you going to return her calls?”

  “We keep missing each other.”

  “Like hell you do.”

  “It’s complicated, Marvin. Please stay out of it.”

  Marvin folded his arms and looked up at the sky. “Sure. I’ll just stand around and watch while you try to get yourself killed.”

  “I’m asking you to respect my decision.”

  “Do you think this is what your girls would’ve wanted?”

  Fletcher snapped his head around, anger curling up a corner of his mouth. “You’re in no position to ask that. Do you have any idea what the last few months have been like?”

  “Of course not, but going off to fight in Vietnam isn’t the answer.”

  “What if it were Cathy or Cynthia? What would you do?”

  “I’d try to find a way to get over their passing and carry on with my life.”

  “Really?” Fletcher said, swallowing hard, and then pointing to his daughter’s grave. “Kelly was barely seven, Marvin. How do you get over that? If you know, please enlighten me.”

  “Fletcher—”

  “Tell me something,” he went on, his voice faltering, “do you know where the line is?”

  “The line?”

  “Where you end … and your family begins.”

  “C’mon, don’t do this.”

  “I’ll tell you. There is no line. I understand that now. You’re one entity, and when a part of you is cut away, the rest of you slowly bleeds out.”

  “Jesus, Fletcher.”

  “Our soldiers are being massacred in Vietnam. Most of them are still kids. They’ve got their whole lives ahead of them. It makes sense that people like me enlist.”

  “People like you,” Marvin repeate
d. “You mean people who want to die. You need help, Fletcher, you need to speak to a professional.”

  “A shrink? Will that bring back my girls?”

  “It might help you to learn to cope without them.”

  “That’s just it,” Fletcher said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to cope without them.”

  Marvin tried to reply, but could draw on nothing meaningful to say.

  “I appreciate you coming and all that you’ve done for me, but I think you should leave.”

  “Just let me—”

  “Please,” Fletcher whispered. “Just go.”

  Marvin began to walk away, then stopped. “Do you remember that piece you did on suicide when you were still covering hospitals? At the end, you wrote that if only the sufferers had been able to see past the moment of their pain, they could claw their way back to life.”

  “What I didn’t realize at the time,” Fletcher replied, his voice thin, “is that you can never truly understand things that haven’t happened to you.”

  Marvin stared up at the sky. “I’ve stood by you through this whole goddamn nightmare. From the moment the plane went down to the day you were discharged from the hospital. If you leave tomorrow, then I’ve just been wasting my time.”

  “I’m sorry, Marvin, but this isn’t about you. I’ve made my decision.”

  “Fine, but know that this is the last thing your girls would’ve wanted for you. You’re making a terrible mistake.”

  “Maybe … but it’s mine to make.”

  Marvin turned away, shaking his head. “You’re heading into a nightmare. It’s hell over there.”

  Fletcher nodded slowly and pictured his girls beneath his feet. “It’s hell everywhere,” he whispered.

  When Marvin was gone, Fletcher knelt down between the two graves. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver frame Abigail had kept on her bedside table. It held one of her favorite photos of the three of them, sitting on a large boulder in Yellowstone Park. He gently placed it down on the plot of fresh grass covering her grave. From another pocket, he withdrew a small wooden box, which he rested against the foot of Kelly’s cross. In it was a crystal sculpture of the dog he had promised to buy her. She had died three days before her seventh birthday.