Conversations with Saint Bernard

by Jim Kraus

  “Burby . . .” Irene said, and the dog looked up at her, “Lewis is gone. Your playmate is gone.”

  Irene would later tell the others Burby understood every word she had just said and his face fell, and he lay down on the corner of the rug, in the morning sun, where Lewis liked to lay, and put his head between his front paws and whimpered softly to himself.

  * * *

  “I know where he’s headed. I saw his final destination on his map. Remember? When I met him for the first time. I told you how organized he was. Just like an engineer, Douglas. Precise. But I’m afraid his schedule has changed,” Irene explained to Douglas and Eleanor. “I’m sure it has. But what I don’t get is why he wouldn’t want to tell us good-bye in person.”

  Douglas seemed to understand George’s reasons for a silent, unbidden departure better than did Irene or Eleanor.

  “I get it,” Douglas said. “Good-byes can be difficult.”

  Eleanor appeared peeved, but in a genial way.

  “It’s the big difference between men and women, Douglas. Men can just leave. They figure everyone will be fine with it. Women would like to know why you’re leaving. A woman wants a reason. An explanation.”

  “Maybe . . .” Douglas wheezed, “maybe he doesn’t know himself.”

  Eleanor’s expression softened, then grew puzzled.

  “He might be right, Irene. We both liked George. And we loved Lewis. But something about George puzzled me. Nothing frightening or anti-social, I assure you. Yet, sometimes, I got the feeling he was holding something back, something painful, perhaps. I didn’t need to know his secrets, of course, but it appeared to me he was uncomfortable with the secrets. I would have thought if he talked about them, he might feel better. But it is hard for some people, I am sure. The truth can be most painful.”

  Eleanor then arched her right eyebrow, just a little, just the hint of question, without actually asking a question. Irene knew it was part of the Southern gentility and grace—maneuvering emotions without appearing to be Machiavellian about it.

  Irene did not mention their conversation from the night before. It would require lots of explanation and nuance—and Irene knew everyone would start drawing parallels between George’s life and her own. And it was obvious from the worried look on Irene’s face she did not want it discussed.

  “You might be right,” Irene replied. “Some men just find it hard to unburden themselves.”

  After a moment, Douglas looked up.

  “Do you know how to get in touch with him? An e-mail address, perhaps? A next of kin?”

  Irene brightened, then the smile vanished.

  “I do have an e-mail . . . but, for it to work, he has to answer it. He does have a daughter. In Arizona. I think he said Arizona. Out west. I don’t know if she’s married or not.”

  Eleanor sat back at the table and lifted up a delicate coffee cup to her lips.

  “If you know where a man will end up, then you will be able to find him.”

  Irene was never sure of just what to read into her sister-in-law’s comments. This one, it was obvious to Irene, was meant to be helpful.

  “True. I could head out west and intercept him.”

  Irene looked like she was in the process of making a decision.

  “If I decide to follow him. Of course, I have no real reason to.”

  Eleanor gave her another slightly arched eyebrow.

  “And, I suppose, no reason not to, either.”

  * * *

  Later, after breakfast, after much more discussion, Irene, back in her bedroom, paced back and forth, wringing her hands, a familiar gesture when she felt troubled. She had almost decided to simply take off, to head west, to see if she could cross paths with George and Lewis again. She would aim her journey’s end at his intended end.

  If the young boy . . . Alex, I think his name was . . . if he is getting better quicker—it’s what George said—then maybe he’ll head straight to the West Coast. Maybe he won’t make as many stops. I could pursue him, and given a worst-case scenario, I could wait for him at the end of his route. I could do it.

  Irene sat on the bed and, without thinking about it, folded a pair of socks, rolling them for easy, space-saving packing.

  Maybe finding him will be like me offering some sort of penance. Maybe it’s what I’ve been looking for all these years. A way to get past this guilt. My guilt. Eleanor knows all about it. I know it. I can see it in her eyes. Maybe it will give me the peace Eleanor and Douglas talk about. Maybe it could work for the both of us. Maybe.

  She slipped the socks into her battered leather valise, purchased in a resale shop in Pocatello, Idaho, some years earlier.

  I have already lost three people I loved. I’m not giving up on this one.

  She started to fold her blouses.

  I care for him. I do.

  She stopped and smiled.

  Or maybe it’s just his dog.

  Maybe.

  She stopped moving and closed her eyes and tried to recall Lewis’s welcoming, all-encompassing smile.

  It is all because of Lewis.

  * * *

  Irene did not explain everything to Eleanor and Douglas—just enough to let them know she was worried about George and she felt she should try and find him.

  “Do you think he might . . .” Eleanor said tentatively, “bring harm to himself. Guilt can do it, as I understand it.”

  Irene knew she was referencing the crash that took her brother’s life and impaired Irene’s for all these years.

  “No. Not George.”

  Douglas turned in his wheelchair, the tires squealing slightly in the wooden floor.

  “No one can be sure, Irene,” Douglas said, his words just a whisper. He seemed to have weakened in the past few days. “One must let go of the past to be free. I had felt, when talking with George, there was something in his history he had not let go of . . . something in regard to his wife, I am sure. The sort of pain I understand well. But I did not take it upon myself to ask. Perhaps I should have.”

  Irene shook her head.

  “No. I mean . . . no, I’m sure he was fine. Is fine. I think he just felt the need to move on.”

  Eleanor nodded and looked at Irene with a serene, forgiving smile on her face. She looked, for a moment, like there was a thought needing to be said aloud and she was holding it back. Then she nodded to herself and spoke. “A portion of a Psalm came to my mind when he and I spoke. I think it is number 32. And perhaps I am paraphrasing a little, ‘I confessed my sins and stopped trying to hide my guilt. And you forgave me. All my guilt is gone.’ ”

  Irene listened to her words, was always polite whenever either of them spoke of the Bible and of faith, and never insulted them by saying such words were nice, but simply not for her, not now, perhaps not ever.

  But this time, this moment, Irene listened and closed her eyes and appeared to be holding back tears.

  “You have nothing to confess to us, Irene. You never have. Any confession is to God. And for whatever has happened in the past, well, it remains in the past and it is forgotten and forgiven. By us and by God. But one is required to ask for it.”

  It became obvious Irene was trying not to cry.

  “It’s not . . .”

  “Perhaps it is not,” Eleanor said. “But we love you. Have always loved you. And now, if you think you can help guide George, help him find peace, then it is what you should do. You have the freedom. And you have our love, regardless.”

  Irene stood, attempted to speak, but simply could not. Then she turned and hurried out of the room and hurried downstairs to her bedroom and hurried to again start her journey.

  46

  George stopped at an RV park just north of Tallahassee, Florida.

  It was the longest single-day drive he had yet attempted. Over four hundred miles with only short stops for coffee, comfort, and gas. If Lewis acted upset or concerned, George did not pay him any attention. He simply wanted to put as much distance between him a
nd Charleston as possible, as quickly as possible.

  Every mile he traveled, all on freeways, all relatively fast, he felt fractionally better. The greater the distance, he thought, the less his confession would echo in his thoughts; the loudness, the clanging and reverberations of his words, he felt, would diminish with each mile traveled.

  When he pulled into his spot and switched off the engine, he just sat, for a long moment. Lewis had stood up in his seat, knowing this was a signal for him to be released from his seat belt and allowed to go outside to investigate.

  But George simply sat, his hands still on the wheel, his eyes focused on the foreground. Presently he closed his eyes and slowly relaxed his death grip on the steering wheel.

  Lewis gave out a series of concerned wuffs, like a lawnmower running over a thick patch of grass.

  “Okay, Lewis. Just give me a minute.”

  Lewis sat back down and stared at George with a definite look of concern on his face.

  After another few moments, George leaned over and unsnapped the harness. He got out of his side of the RV, walked slowly around to Lewis, and opened his door.

  “You okay without a leash tonight?”

  Lewis had always been okay without a leash, and he climbed down to the ground, sniffing.

  The two of them walked down to the end of the lane without talking, without wuffing, without trying to meet and greet other campers, without paying much attention to their surroundings.

  “Hungry?”

  At this, Lewis wuffed.

  George simply filled his bowl with kibbles and set a kettle on for making coffee.

  Lewis ate his kibbles, without sniffing at them first, and George dank his coffee without truly tasting it.

  And they both stared out the RV window and watched the night come over Tallahassee.

  * * *

  Lewis . . . I suppose I should tell you these things . . . but you would just be confused. I told the truth. I explained what happened as honestly as I could. And it has not set me free. The truth shall set you free? Malarkey.

  And no one says malarkey anymore.

  I know. I am a living anachronism.

  The truth has not provided freedom. It has simply reinforced what I had thought about myself. I am the epitome of a man haunted by an unforgivable offense.

  And it’s the truth of the matter.

  Sorry, Lewis. But this is a truth and a mistake and simply cannot be fixed.

  George put his coffee cup in the sink, without washing it.

  There is only one way out of this. Only one way.

  * * *

  Irene pulled into the gas station just beyond the city limits of Charleston. Normally, she would drive several hundred miles, to get between metropolitan areas, where she felt the gas would be less expensive.

  Today she did not care. Whatever the price was, the price was. She filled up the tank, paid for it with a credit card, did not take the receipt the machine offered, got back inside the van, and headed west on 17, aiming to pick up Interstate 95 and head south.

  “He said he was stopping in Savannah,” Irene explained to Eleanor just before she departed, later in the day, after George and Lewis had left. “But I don’t think he’ll go there. Not now. It’s too close. And too similar to Charleston.”

  “Too close?” Eleanor asked.

  “Just a feeling,” Irene replied. “I think he wants to put some distance between here and where he’s going.”

  Eleanor sat on the guest bed as Irene packed up her few belongings.

  “So . . . he did tell you more than you let on this morning.”

  Irene stopped folding a faded pair of jeans.

  “He did.”

  She held the jeans close to her chest for a moment, thinking, considering her thoughts, then laid the jeans carefully in her battered leather bag.

  “You were right, Eleanor. He does carry a tremendous amount of guilt—over the death of his wife.”

  Eleanor did not appear surprised. She did not smile, nor frown, nor nod, but it was as if she simply willed Irene to expand a bit more. And Irene did.

  “He prayed for her death. The only time he prayed and it was for her to die. And he blames himself now for praying it and it being the only prayer God answered.”

  Eleanor nodded, ever so slightly, a mature, knowing nod.

  “It is what I thought.”

  First, Eleanor looked down at her hands, elegantly folded in her lap. Then she looked up to Irene with a kind, forgiving expression—a smile, but not a smile—an expression of acceptance and empathy.

  “I understand him, Irene. I can understand how a person gets to such a dark, hurtful place. If we were people, Douglas and I, if we were people of more limited means . . . where help was not so readily and easily available, I would imagine my pain and frustration might be amplified. If he could not afford the best therapy, if I could not have the time away to find some strength and peace through being alone, if we did not have our faith, then I’m sure I would be where George was. The thought has crossed my mind as well, Irene. It is the way darkness works. It seduces you into the blackness. You must always be wary of such a seduction.”

  Eleanor shook her head just a bit.

  “Don’t be shocked, Irene. I am prey to the same sort of slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as anyone else.”

  Irene sat next to her on the bed. She appeared to be near tears but also appeared to be steeling herself from showing her emotions.

  “But you and Douglas seem so . . . happy.”

  “It is only by faith we can be so, Irene. Only through faith.”

  Irene looked away.

  “And through forgiveness, Irene. Through forgiveness.”

  * * *

  Irene downshifted as the van entered the freeway. A small engine, a four-speed transmission, did not allow for speedy takeoffs. She gunned the engine as best she could to get to the speed of traffic and nudged her way to the far right lane, just ahead of a looming semitruck. With her foot completely to the floor, the van shimmied just a bit but slowly made headway away from being overshadowed.

  And he won’t go to Cape Canaveral either. I told him I had been there and it was full of tourists and Mickey Mouse hats and foam fingers. I would bet it soured him on drawing any rocket ships. The only place he might be headed for is . . . New Orleans. It might have been Vicksburg on the Mississippi . . . he did say he liked Civil War battlefields. But it’s far north and if he has to get to the coast in short order, he would cross it off his list. I think it has to be New Orleans. And the only things to draw in New Orleans . . . the only things I think he would like would be the Superdome, the French Quarter, and maybe the Garden District.

  She pulled out into the middle lane of three lanes and held the wheel tight, the eddies and swirls and backdrafts from a slower tandem trailer buffeting the small van like a one-man ketch in a hurricane. She clenched her jaw tight and pushed her reedy van past the truck into clear, less turbulent air.

  * * *

  “So you don’t mind making adjustments to your trip, Mr. Gibson? We could meet you anywhere. Then you could stay on track with your itinerary.”

  George and Lewis sat side-by-side on the couch, with the camera facing them, and watched Mrs. Burden in the small screen of the tablet on the table.

  “No, it will be fine. I only have to skip a few places. Since you can’t get away until next month with school vacations and all, I still have some time.”

  “Now you’re absolutely certain? You have been such a godsend to us, Mr. Gibson. I cannot tell you how much we appreciate the gift you have given to us—and to Alex. He is simply beside himself.”

  George nodded and Lewis wuffed again as she mentioned Alex’s name.

  “The doctor said his progress has been wonderful—in terms of getting through the regime of shots. And we tried it out with a neighbor’s dog. We offered to dogsit for a week—and this dog was a super-shedder. The dog appeared to consist mainly of loose hair and a bark. It�
��s some sort of retriever mix who left hair all over everything—and I mean everything. And Alex did not have a single sniffle or cough. The allergist says all of his skin tests for animal dander and fur have all been almost to the point of zero. So . . . basically, with routine follow-ups, Alex is cured.”

  “Again, Mrs. Burden. It is good news. Isn’t it, Lewis? You want to see Alex again, don’t you?”

  Wuff. Wuff. Wuff.

  “Well, then, we’ll plan to leave on the fifteenth of next month. Unless the weather is terrible up here.”

  “And you don’t mind risking winter driving?” George asked.

  “Not at all. This summer, we bought a big four-wheel drive behemoth. It’s bigger than our first house. I think it has six-wheel drive, actually. And we can show Alex some of America this way—and the winter will definitely keep the crowds down.”

  George laughed with Mrs. Burden. She seemed bright and happy and . . . well, joyful.

  “So, you’re in New Orleans now, right?”

  “I am,” George affirmed. “We are. Lewis doesn’t seem to like it much. The humidity here is like taking a twenty-four-hour shower. But still, an interesting place.”

  “And I thought you were headed up river . . . the Mississippi, right?”

  “I was. But I have made a lot of adjustments. I’m going to drive straight through Texas. I’ll do the Grand Canyon and maybe Monument Valley. And maybe Zion. Then on to California and San Francisco and up the coast. With more than a month left, it is doable. And I won’t have to rush any of it.”

  “Honestly?”

  “Honestly,” George replied. “And I’m getting to the end of the trip. It’s time to call it quits and get off the road for a while. I’m looking forward to finding a routine again.”

  “As long as you’re okay with it, Mr. Gibson.”

  “I am. And so is Lewis.”

  Mrs. Burden beamed.

  “Alex will be so excited. We didn’t tell him we may be traveling so soon. Originally, he figured we might use next year’s spring break. But this way, it will be our family Christmas present.”

  “It sounds great, Mrs. Burden. I’m happy for you.”

  “Well, then, we’ll talk soon—okay, Mr. Gibson? And thank you so much. I mean it.” George clicked off the Skype connection and sat still. Lewis seemed to be lost in thought as well.