The Forgotten Road
Page 16
As I pondered my newfound joy, my thoughts turned to Eddie. He would just be getting back from the fields about now, sitting down to a humble meal of warmed tortillas with mashed beans. A pang of guilt passed through me. He deserved the meal I was about to eat. If he were here, I would feed him. I hoped that I would have that chance. I hoped that he didn’t forget to email me. I even prayed that he wouldn’t. It was an awkward prayer, one of those, “I don’t know if I’m talking to anyone or just the ceiling, but if you are there, please let me find Eddie so I can help him get back with his wife and have a good life.”
I don’t know if God hears those kinds of prayers, but if He is who people claim He is, I suspect He does.
Chapter Forty
Challenges are like thunderstorms: where some see darkness, others find nourishment.
—CHARLES JAMES’S DIARY
I slept in late the next morning. Really late. Actually, it was afternoon when I finally woke. The soft, full bed and its clean, expensive linens felt luxurious. I ordered eggs Benedict for lunch, with fresh-squeezed orange juice and breakfast potatoes. Then I showered and got dressed and went for a walk. I know that might sound funny, but walking was part of me now, and my mind needed it as much as my body.
I walked about four miles to a downtown mall and back. The city was warm and windy and dry. I’ve heard Amarillo described as “a cow town on the edge of metropolis,” which seemed about right. I had been to Amarillo twice before on one of my whirlwind seminar tours, but I had never really seen the place. I liked it this time. Maybe it wasn’t what I had found in the city but in myself.
I went back to my hotel, turned on the television, and just zoned out for the next two hours. I was starting to think about dinner when there was a knock at my door. I opened the door without looking to see who was there.
It was Amanda. At first she just stared at me, her mouth agape. Then she threw her arms around me. “It really is you.”
We hugged for at least a minute. When we parted, her cheeks were wet with tears. “I had to see you in person,” she said. “I had to be sure it was you.”
“You knew it was me.”
“My head did,” she said, “but my heart didn’t.”
“When did you get in?”
“Just an hour ago. I caught the first flight to Amarillo.”
“I’m glad you came,” I said. “Come in.”
She had a carry-on bag, which she pulled into my room. Her eyes never left me, like she was afraid I might disappear again. After the door shut she said, “I still can’t believe it. When I heard that the plane had crashed . . .” Her eyes welled up again. “So many things went through my mind. I blamed myself. If only I had put you on a different flight . . .”
“You can’t blame yourself for something you had no control over.”
“I can,” she said. “I shouldn’t, but I definitely can.”
I smiled. “The truth is, you saved my life by making me go to that office birthday party.”
“That party you hated,” she said.
“The one I hated,” I echoed. “I’m sorry.” I looked her over. “Are you hungry?”
“Starved.”
“Good. Let’s go get some dinner.”
Chapter Forty-One
The sojourn has changed, but not, I think, as much as the sojourner.
—CHARLES JAMES’S DIARY
At the concierge’s recommendation, Amanda and I took a taxi to the Big Texan Steak Ranch. The restaurant is an Amarillo icon, a bright-yellow edifice with a half dozen Texas flags flying in front and a giant cowboy boot and steer in the parking lot. A sign on the steer advertised a free seventy-two-ounce steak, with the disclaimer If eaten by one person in one hour.
The restaurant was crowded, though from the size of the place, I suspected that it probably always was. We waited about a half hour for a table, then a waitress in a cowboy hat sat us at a table along one of the outer walls, which was about as much privacy as we were going to get. She brought us drinks served in red plastic cups in the shape of cowboy boots.
“I’ve never been here before,” Amanda said.
“Neither have I. When was the last time we were in Amarillo?”
“It was two years ago. August.”
I don’t know how she did it, but Amanda never forgot a show or a venue.
After we had ordered, Amanda said, “You know the crash made international news. It’s all anyone talked about for days.”
“I know,” I said. “I got to the point that I couldn’t turn on the television.”
She leaned forward to better hear me. “So tell me in detail how you missed the flight.”
“Okay,” I said, leaning forward myself. “You know we were cutting it close. And O’Hare was already chaos because of the weather, so by the time I got to the gate, I had missed the preboarding and there was a line that stretched to the end of the Jetway. You know how I hate waiting in lines, so I decided to go buy a phone charger.”
“That’s right,” Amanda said. “Your phone was dead.”
“I wasn’t in a hurry, since the line was so long, but apparently the airline was, because when I got back to the gate, the line had somehow evaporated, and the gate agent was calling my name.
“I checked in. Then, halfway down the Jetway, I realized that I’d left my pack with my computer and all the money you gave me in the store where I’d bought the charger. So I hurried back out.
“By then the gate attendant was off helping other customers, so when I couldn’t get her attention, I just ran to the store and got my pack. The girl in the store was slow as peanut butter, so by the time I got back to the gate, they had closed the Jetway door.”
“Then why didn’t the airline tell us you weren’t on the flight?”
“Because the gate agent was overwhelmed with irate passengers, and when I finally got her attention, she told me to go to customer assistance, which was where I was still waiting when I learned the plane had crashed.”
Amanda breathed out deeply. “It sounds like a complex conspiracy to keep you alive.”
“Apparently.”
“So why are you walking to California?”
“I ask myself that every day,” I said. “You know what a mess I was in before I left. I just needed time to clear my mind.
“After the crash, it felt like the universe had given me a chance to rethink my life. I couldn’t stay at home without being discovered, and I wasn’t going to sit around in a hotel room. I knew it was only a matter of time before my passport was revoked, so I couldn’t leave the country. So I decided to do what I always do when I’m stumped. I decided to walk.”
“But why Route 66?”
“It chose me. Remember those nightmares I’d been having?”
“That’s right,” she said, nodding in remembrance.
“But I think it’s more than that. As I thought over my life, I realized that the only time I had really been happy was back when I was with Monica. And not coincidentally, she’s at the end of Route 66. Maybe it’s a walk of penitence, but I think I’ve been headed back to her for a long time now, I just didn’t know it.
“The universe had given me a second chance at life. I was hoping that maybe it would give me a second chance with Monica as well.”
Amanda’s expression abruptly fell. I knew the look on her face too well—the one she had whenever she had bad news she didn’t want to tell me. My stomach instinctively knotted up. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
Amanda shook her head. “I’m so sorry.” She took a deep breath, then said, “Two days before your memorial service, Monica called to tell me she couldn’t make it. She was really apologetic about it. She said that Gabriel had come down with strep and she didn’t have anyone to watch him.”
“Is he all right?”
“I’m sure he is,” Amanda said. “That’s not what I was going to tell you.” She looked into my eyes. “I asked her how she was doing and she told me that she’s getting married.”
“I’m really sorry,” Amanda said again.
I didn’t speak for a moment, then said angrily, “She sounds pretty broken up by my death.”
“She was very upset,” Amanda said. She reached over and touched my hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Again I was speechless. Most of all I felt stupid. Why was I so surprised? Of course she was getting married. She was beautiful and smart and sweet. The real question was, Why hadn’t she gotten married sooner?
Still, the news hit me in the gut like a sucker punch. It was several minutes before I could speak. I fought back the emotion that was crushing my chest and heart.
Amanda just looked at me sadly. After a while she said, “What are you going to do now?”
I slowly shook my head for a moment. Then I said, “I’m going to do what I always do. I’m going to finish what I started.”
“You’re going to finish walking the Route?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to see Monica?”
“Yes.”
“And after that?”
I looked her in the eyes and said, “I’ll let you know when I get there.”
The next morning, Amanda and I went to a mall phone store and got me a simple flip phone so she could reach me in case of an emergency. She also gave me one of her credit cards, saying that she would add me to the account and send me my own card as soon as it came to her.
Amanda flew back to Chicago that afternoon. The last thing she said to me before getting into a taxi was, “You really have changed, Charles.”
I asked, “Is that a good thing?”
She replied, “What do you think?”
“I think that’s a safe answer,” I said.
She smiled, then said, “You seem more at peace.”
“I’ll take peace,” I said.
I shut the door, and the taxi headed off for the airport. The next day I started back out on the road.
Epilogue
My therapist, Dr. Fordham, once said to me, “The reason we start something is rarely the reason we continue doing it.” Perhaps that’s true with diets and habits, but I found it true for me in walking as well. I still intended to see Monica. I owed her that. Maybe I would even congratulate her on her upcoming nuptials. She deserved to be happy. She deserved to be loved. She deserved better than I had given her. She deserved to be someone’s pearl. I wanted her to know that. I wanted her to hear that from my own mouth.
And I wanted to meet my son. I didn’t know what I would say to him. What do you say to someone you’ve so utterly failed? I didn’t even know if he knew I existed—or that I had supposedly died. How confusing this would be for him. For the first time I thought it might be better if he didn’t know that I was still alive.
What I did know was that Monica would protect him. She was fiercely protective of those she loved. That had once included me.
I didn’t know what I would say when I reached her, but I still had three states and twelve hundred miles to figure that out. That’s a lot of miles. A lot of steps. And a lot of time to think. I would figure something out by then. In the meantime, all I knew for certain was that it was time to return to my walk.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my editor, Christine Pride, for her patience, as well as the rest of my Simon & Schuster family: Jonathan Karp, Carolyn Reidy, Richard Rhorer, Sarah Reidy, Elizabeth Breeden, and Benjamin Holmes. Thanks, always, to my agent, Laurie Liss, for running interference.
The doctor Charles meets in Joplin is partially based on a friend and a man I admire, Dr. George Ritchie, who has since passed away. His book Return from Tomorrow helped lead me back to God. I highly recommend it.
To my wife, Keri: You are love and light. Thank you for your example.
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About the Authhor
© TRACEY EVANS
RICHARD PAUL EVANS is the #1 bestselling author of The Christmas Box. Each of his more than thirty novels has been a New York Times bestseller. There are more than thirty million copies of his books in print worldwide, translated into more than twenty-four languages. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the American Mothers Book Award, the Romantic Times Best Women’s Novel of the Year Award, the German Audience Gold Award for Romance, four Religion Communicators Council Wilbur Awards, the Washington Times Humanitarian of the Century Award, and the Volunteers of America National Empathy Award. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife, Keri, not far from their five children and two grandchildren.
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FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS
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ISBN 978-1-5011-1179-2
ISBN 978-1-5011-1181-5 (ebook)