The Road to You

by Brant, Marilyn

  “I guess so,” I whispered. Then, because I just had to ask, “Is there any way I’ll ever be able to see him again? Any time when it’ll be safe enough for him to come out of hiding? When things will get cleared up enough so he can come home?”

  Donovan came over to stand by me and to lend his silent support as Billy thought about my questions. The Albuquerque cop who’d been so kind to us looked very uncomfortable in that moment.

  “It’s not quite as simple as all of that,” he began. “At some point, maybe Andy can explain it to you. Maybe be an intermediary of sorts between you and your brother. But I can tell you this…Gideon is still very concerned with the repercussions of returning home.” He fiddled with his snack and his coffee.

  “He needed some serious medical attention when he drove into town. He might have died without it, and I was able to get him cleaned up and bandaged on the sly. And, Donovan, as you and Aurora guessed, we were also able to privately bury your brother at St. Christopher’s. I wish there had been a way to get help to them both sooner.”

  Donovan’s face was shuttered against emotion, but I could tell he appreciated knowing this. Knowing that his brother’s body had been laid to rest by a caring policeman and by Jeremy’s best friend.

  “The problem for Gideon is that, while he’s still alive, the mob’s interest in him may not go away, and anyone near him could likewise be in danger,” Billy explained. “He’s seen death firsthand already. The mob doesn’t know how much he knows about their operations, and we don’t know how much Rick Brice and Sebastian James told Vincent Leto about Gideon before they died.”

  “So, even though Rick and Sebastian are dead now, they may have passed the torch to someone else?” I said.

  “Typically, mob crimes are very bad, but their cover-ups can be even worse. Gideon’s afraid, and not without reason, that they might use his family as leverage to get that information out of him. But if he stays away from all of you, you’ll be safer from Leto and his associates. If, in the view of the mob, you and your family were convinced Gideon was dead, he couldn’t have been in contact with you. Therefore, he couldn’t have told you anything.”

  I gulped back my frustration. I understood this, but I still didn’t want to hear it. “What should we tell our parents, though?” I asked. “Is there anything we can say? Any fragment of explanation we’re able to give them?”

  Billy’s face filled with compassion and I felt Donovan’s arm reach around me.

  “I don’t know yet,” the cop said. “But we’ll work on that. I promise.”

  What he told us we could and should do, however, was get out of Albuquerque for a few days while the police and the FBI worked to wrap up whatever they could at this stage.

  “Don’t go too far away,” he said on Thursday morning, “just far enough that any of Leto’s thugs, who might be lingering in this area, can’t find you. We still need to arrest William James in Minnesota and Paul Earling in Wisconsin and piece together what the two of them know. We’re compiling as much evidence as we can and making sure it’s airtight. We may not be able to make the world secure enough for Gideon to resurface, but we’d like the two of you to feel safe returning home to Chameleon Lake. I can tell you, having proof that William contacted Sebastian after you two called him was one of the linchpins to this segment of the investigation. We have verifying phone records, so we’ll definitely proceed with his arrest. Fingers crossed we can prosecute a few mobsters while we’re at it, too.”

  Donovan nodded at Billy in approval before glancing at me. “You keep talking about Colorado, Aurora. You wanna go there for a couple of days?”

  I thought about it but, then, remembered something that made me say no. “My brother sent Amy Lynn a postcard from Flagstaff, Arizona. Guess I’m curious to know why he liked it so much. How about we go there?”

  Flagstaff, Arizona ~ Friday, June 30

  WE MADE an adventure game out of our explorations.

  Donovan got to choose five sites to visit on the Northern Arizona University campus and another five in the city of Flagstaff, and I got to do the same. Not surprisingly, there was zero crossover.

  “You don’t have Heritage Square—the historic downtown—as one of your city sites?” I said, looking up from the reference materials at the NAU library that we’d been using to gather our visiting choices.

  He read through my list. “And you don’t have Lowell Observatory? It’s where Pluto was discovered.” He smiled. “I’d have thought you’d want to get to know the planet of your ancestors.”

  In spite of myself, I laughed along with his corny joke. Then I elbowed him. Hard.

  But the truth was that I was reveling in the silliness of our conversations this afternoon, and I could tell Donovan was, too. It was a nice change to get to kid each other about goofy, normal things…and not to have to talk about explosions or mob retaliations or the disappearance and death of siblings.

  As always, I loved being at a library. I loved the promise it offered. The gift of learning. How it was a bastion of possibility in an uncertain world. Really, I loved everything about it and just wanted to drink up the information so readily available to everyone. Weigh it in my mind and attempt to make sense of the Earth and its people.

  Much as I’d been focused on my brother and our family’s tragedy in the past two years, I hadn’t been completely oblivious to how our nation’s self image had been changing. Gideon used to yak about it all the time. The way any economic or social crisis led to citizens questioning the system. Like how the shock of Watergate or the Vietnam War left Americans doubting the depth of their patriotism or wondering whether capitalism really worked. There was a persistent fear that other countries might be winning “the race”—whichever one the press was most concerned about that week.

  But I never felt any such fear within these four walls. In a library, there was always hope, a sense of fresh discovery and the comfort of being surrounded by the wisdom of the world’s brightest minds.

  So, while Donovan had been across the room, sifting through Flagstaff brochures and skimming a few city maps, I’d scribbled my own lists and had gotten to watch the college students filter in and out of the building. I’d seen them poring over their summer-school textbooks, flipping through newspapers and periodicals or just reading novels for fun—a cool, shaded and relaxing oasis from the late June heat.

  It must have been pure heaven.

  But I had things to learn, too, and quite a lot about this new region. I’d never been anywhere close to the Southwestern U.S. before and hadn’t even read much about Arizona. Between Donovan and me, we’d figured out that there was a ski resort seven miles away, tons of hiking and biking trails and a hopping downtown area with frequent concerts, movie showings, restaurants and art fairs.

  Flagstaff was also just an hour and a half from the Grand Canyon, two to three hours from the Painted Desert, Sedona and Phoenix and about four hours from Las Vegas. If this had been a vacation, we would’ve had our week booked with sightseeing.

  But it wasn’t a vacation. It hadn’t even been a college scouting trip. Still, finally getting the chance to wander around a university town and act like a typical teen for a couple of days was quite a change of pace. I was enjoying it.

  One of Donovan’s campus choices turned out to be the Old Main building, so we left the library and headed toward it. The outdoor walkways that crisscrossed through the college were especially lovely for strolling. The city was in the middle of an enormous ponderosa pine forest, as well as at the base of the San Francisco Peaks. Gorgeous trees, breathtaking mountains and a clear blue sky. I was getting lightheaded from the beauty of it all.

  When I told Donovan this, though, he laughed loudly.

  “Or, maybe, you’re feeling lightheaded because of the elevation,” he said. “You’re not used to walking around at seven thousand feet.”

  “Well, you’re not either,” I retorted.

  “I know.” He put his arm around me and gently squ
eezed my shoulders. “I’m a little lightheaded, too.”

  He didn’t remove his arm until we reached the reddish brick building with the coppery roof and had to walk through the front door. Elevation or not, with Donovan’s arm around me like that, I was pretty breathless by the time we got there.

  Old Main was a collection of offices, museums and an art gallery. I pulled out Gideon’s postcard and scanned the gallery for the weird cactus-like sculpture that had been on the front of the card, but I didn’t see it there.

  After that, we meandered to one of my campus choices, NAU’s School of Art. It was the department that had been stamped on the postcard, and I was curious to look around. Again, lots of interesting artistic creations, but no weird cactus thing.

  “The displays rotate regularly,” one of the School of Art instructors said kindly. “But we photograph some of our most popular pieces and have them available as postcards. See?” She pointed to a rack full of images featuring amazing and innovative art projects—from pottery to paintings, jewelry to sculptures.

  Sure enough, the one Gideon had sent to Amy Lynn was there, mixed in with thirty or forty others. It was strange to see a pristine version of that same postcard. No bent corners. No smudged ink. No hidden meanings or implicit hopes.

  Donovan saw me looking at it and came to stand beside me.

  “You interested in studying art?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “I’m not very artistic. But it’s cool to look at what some people can do with their hands. The gifts they have.”

  “Yeah.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught him glancing quickly at his own fingers. Hands that had fixed a thousand vehicles, held scores of weapons, lit and defused explosives and, no doubt, were capable of building great things.

  I thought of what he’d told me he’d once wanted to do—be a car designer or an architect—and wondered what it would take to convince him that fresh starts and second chances were as much for him as they were for anyone.

  And, well, while I was at it, I guess I needed to convince myself of the same thing.

  Courage. It wouldn’t be the real thing if we weren’t scared, right?

  I took a deep breath and decided to take my first truly brave step, at least when it came to Donovan. I reached out my hand and I put it in his.

  He held onto it and, for the longest time, didn’t let go.

  THE TWO of us spent the remainder of the day and most of the night in a state of contented aimlessness.

  Sure, we wandered around town, as well as the NAU campus, and took in the lovely scenery but, really, we were just waiting to get the high sign from Billy Neville that it was all clear for us to go home.

  We’d talked to our parents and, hopefully, lied to them for the last time about why we still weren’t back in Minnesota. Our excuse du jour was some simple car trouble that needed a couple of days to repair, but it would only be a short delay and we’d soon be able to leave “Iowa.” (They had no idea we were actually in Arizona.)

  I sensed my dad didn’t entirely believe our tall tale, but I was praying Billy would give me something I could tell him to ease the acute loss he and my mom had felt for so long. More than even that, I was hoping nothing would come up to prevent Donovan and me from returning to Chameleon Lake.

  However much I’d wanted to get out of that little town and meld into the big wide world, I also wanted it to be on my terms, not as a reaction to some band of criminals.

  “I’m going to grab an admissions packet tomorrow,” I told Donovan, still feeling guilty about lying so much to my parents. “If Billy says it’s okay to tell them we were in Arizona, I’ll at least have a little proof that we really looked at a college.”

  “Not a bad plan,” he said. “Otherwise, we can stop at the first college town we get to in Iowa and you can pick up a bunch of brochures and applications there. And, oh—” He tapped his temple, remembering. “Somewhere in my car, I’ve still got that yellow flyer about the Deadhead concert in Normal. Proof you were on an Illinois university campus, too.”

  I burst out laughing. “I’m sure if my parents were worried about me going away to school, that would ease their fears completely.”

  He smiled. “Well, yeah, okay. Maybe not.”

  At one point in the evening, our conversation turned to Gideon’s journal, specifically, the later entries. My brother had completed the entire Route 66 journey, with all of its quaintness, unique attractions and powerful ideals of freedom.

  In 1976, he’d been in Flagstaff on September eighth, Topock on September twenty-sixth, San Bernardino on October second and Pasadena on October tenth—making references to things we still didn’t understand and could only speculate about in our little roadside motel room.

  “Do you think ‘sunset ranger’ is a person, place or thing?” I asked Donovan, referring to a phrase on the Pasadena page.

  He shrugged. “No idea. But I think the important thing for you to remember, Aurora, is that your brother is still alive. Somewhere out there—” He waved his palm in a westerly direction. “Gideon’s okay. Living his life. Being protected by Andy Reggio and Billy Neville. And, even though you didn’t get to see him in person, he contacted you…with his journal. You know he’s out there and he cares about you. That’s a lot to know.”

  I did know that, yes. But I felt deeply for Donovan, not having that, too.

  He told me a little bit about his plan to go back to St. Christopher’s Church near Albuquerque someday soon, just to find out from Billy where exactly Jeremy’s unmarked grave was located. He wanted to be able to say a real goodbye to his little brother.

  And it occurred to me then that it was more than just a sibling-to-sibling relationship he and Jeremy had shared. They were brothers, of course, but, in many ways, I realized Donovan had also played the part of a father figure during all those times their real dad or their stepdad wasn’t there for them.

  I remembered my little “act of courage” from earlier in the day. Holding Donovan’s hand. It was nice, but it was nothing like the courage he’d shown in the face of so many challenges and losses. I could do better, be braver, too, even in the face of mine.

  We were laughing about something we’d seen on TV and eating Good & Plenty candy from the box before I finally worked up the nerve to talk with him honestly about my feelings.

  “We met each other a long time ago, Donovan,” I began. “But, until we went to Crescent Cove together, I didn’t know you very well. I sort of thought I did—” He grinned at that. “But I really didn’t,” I continued. “You’re not the guy I had that girlish crush on two years ago. You’re someone I really care about. Someone I’ve been really lucky to have traveling beside me through all of this craziness. I’m so grateful to you for being the talented, generous, honest man that you are.”

  Tears began to well up in my eyes as I spoke. I felt them there, but they weren’t out of sadness. So, I blinked them away, patted his left shoulder gently—above his bandaged wound, which was healing but it still had to hurt—sniffled once and stepped back from him.

  He set the box of pink and white licorice candies on the side table and flipped off the TV.

  Then he came back and stood in front of me.

  For too many seconds to count, we just looked at each other. Body heat radiated off of him and warmed my skin without him even touching me. But then he broke through. He reached out, pulled me to him and bent down to kiss me.

  There was not a drop of alcohol involved this time. No taste of grief either. Just pure emotion, and the happy oneness you feel when you live for a moment in the actual present. Not in the past, with all of its has-beens and regrets. Not in the future, with its expectations and projections.

  Just here. Just now. Just us.

  He wrapped me up in his kiss, cradled me in it, like a cactus leaf holds a precious droplet of rain. And afterward, we walked outside in the dark, hand in hand, as the clock raced its way to midnight and June turned into July.


  “Happy birthday, Aurora,” Donovan whispered as we wound our way back to our motel.

  I smiled, pleased he’d remembered.

  He’d already given me a gift, of course—the beautiful ruby ring from Santa Fe, which I never took off my finger—but the real present was him telling me in words what his actions had already shown. That he liked me a whole lot, too. That, in fact, he’d been attracted to me for far too many years, but had just considered me off limits, mostly because of my age and because of the friendship between our brothers and because of his concern that I might want or need a different type of man. One who was more academic and bookish than he’d ever be.

  “You asked me in the car, after we left Amy Lynn’s, what those two things were that I knew I was right about,” he said. “Do you remember the first one?”

  “You told me, ‘Disco sucks,’” I said with a laugh.

  “That’s right! Disco does suck and we can’t get rid of it soon enough.” He wrapped his arms around me and leaned me up against the door to our motel unit. “But I didn’t tell you the second one. It’s that I knew from the day I met you, Aurora Gray, that you’d grow up to be a beautiful, strong and extremely intelligent woman. Someone who’d be irresistible to me someday.” He paused. “I really didn’t want to think about that when you were twelve, though.”

  I kissed him first this time, giddy as I was with happiness and unable to contain it. “But I’m eighteen now,” I told him.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, you are.”

  WE FINALLY fell asleep sometime after three a.m., having spent the wee hours talking, making out and confessing the little things that had attracted each of us to the other. The qualities we appreciated. The times we were driven a little nutty with jealousy, too. (This applied more often to me than to him, but I was pleased to hear that my flirting with the Cute Librarian Guy in Joplin had ticked him off.)

  “Oh, good,” I said. “I’d been trying so hard to irritate you.”