And as much as I wanted a mother and clean sheets and a nice bed and a dog and to have my nails done and to work with horses, I knew I couldn’t let my dad leave without me. I had to know what he was going to do. I had to know about my real mother.
Stars were out as the three drove home from the movie. Sheila had watched June Bug stare at the big screen as if it were her first time in a theater. She laughed at all the funny parts and sat close to the edge of her seat during the love scenes. In the process, she’d eaten the lion’s share of the large popcorn and then dived into the butter-slathered refill.
They stopped at Walmart to pick up some ice for John’s cooler and a few more supplies. Sheila walked back into the parking lot with the girl while her dad paid.
“Must be kinda hard for you to shop at the same place you work,” June Bug said.
“Sometimes you just know too much.” Sheila leaned against her car. “Sometimes I go to the SuperTarget just to see what life is like on the other side.”
The girl chuckled. She had a good sense of humor.
“How are you feeling about staying with me for a couple of weeks?” Sheila said. “You okay with it?”
June Bug sighed. “It’ll be nice not to have to sleep in that lumpy old bed.”
“Well, I think it’ll be a lot of fun.”
“I’m going to love playing with Walter while you’re at work every day. And if you want me to do chores, I can. But I hope to read most of the time.”
Sheila nodded. “I’ve arranged to take a few days off. Maybe we can take a day trip to Buena Vista or we could do an overnight in Glenwood Springs at the pool. They have a big slide, and the water’s supposed to have special healing powers. Smells like eggs cooking to me, but . . .”
She noticed a cloud had come over June Bug’s face. The girl looked up at her like she had just been told her birthday party had been canceled. Sheila wondered if she had ever had a birthday party. “What’s wrong, honey?”
Her face brightened instantly. “Nothing. I just don’t want you to take your vacation because of me. I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will, but I’ve been waiting for a special occasion to take some days off.”
They stared at the sky for a while in silence. Finally June Bug spoke. “I miss the fireflies. Daddy calls them lightning bugs. When we travel down south we get out jars and put holes in the top, and I can watch them light up all night.”
A cool breeze blew through the parking lot, and Sheila rubbed her arms. “Sounds nice.”
“The roof of the RV has a skylight right over my bed. Sometimes I sleep at the other end because the moon’s so bright. But a lot of times I’ll finish reading and turn off my light and look up at the sky and try to count the stars. Sometimes I wonder if those same stars are the ones my mother sees. All bright and shiny.”
“And what conclusion do you come to?”
“I’m not sure. I wonder if she’s flown up to heaven and become an angel. Or maybe she’s still down here waiting. Or she could have run off with the circus or something and doesn’t care I exist.”
Sheila started to correct June Bug’s theology about angels but thought better of it. There’d be plenty of time to talk in the coming days. It was one thing she was looking forward to—late-night talks about God and guys and life. Some people look at children as beings you have to mold and shape. Sheila always looked at them as gifts God gave to help you learn.
“If you could do one thing with your mother, what would it be?” Sheila said.
June Bug traced her finger around some stars and cocked her head, one eye closed. “I think I’d want to just talk. Find out if she loved me. Ask her why she left. What she liked about Daddy when she met him. Her favorite places to eat. If she likes fried chicken as much as I do. If she ever thinks about me. Stuff like that.”
“You wouldn’t want to go to Six Flags or on a cruise? That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”
June Bug sighed. “I think that’s what I’ve learned from living in an RV. It doesn’t matter
where
you are as long as you’re with people you love.”
Sheila stared at the same stars, trying to make sense of the seemingly endless expanse and the white dots that flickered against the deep blackness.
A smaller light moved slowly above them, and June Bug became excited. “Satellite!”
Sheila watched in fascination. It was the truth about everyone she had ever known.
We’re all satellites sent out, circling the world until something stops us or we fall apart or wander from our orbit and burn.
Always drifting with the current, never resting or pausing.
Later in the evening after June Bug was tucked into bed, John came to Sheila in the kitchen. He’d dumped a couple bags of ice into the cooler.
“You get her all squared away?” Sheila said.
He nodded and crossed his arms, leaning against the stove. “It’s not easy to leave, but I think this’ll be good. Let her experience a real house.” He got a faraway look. “She said she didn’t want me waking her when I left. Do you think that’s normal?”
Sheila placed a plate in the rack to dry. “My degree is not in child psychology, and I’ve never been a mother, but it makes sense to me.”
John smiled. “You have a degree?”
“A master’s. School of hard knocks.”
“They gave me an honorary doctorate.”
Sheila laughed and picked up another plate. “I think it’s healthy. She’s separating a little. Growing up.”
Sheila wiped down the sink, squeezed the remaining dishwashing liquid out of the pink sponge, and placed it on the windowsill. “You never sent that article you promised.”
His eyes were blank for a moment. “Oh, that. Sorry. I’ll print it before I leave if I can use your computer.”
She dried her hands and led him into what she called her office. She still used a dial-up Internet connection. “I’d love to read anything you’ve written. How did you get started?”
John seemed tentative. “I’ve been keeping a journal for a while. Some experiences I had in the military. Things that come back to me. I figured why not get paid for some of that pain instead of just letting it sit there? I’ll print you something I wrote about her.”
“She’s going to ask when you’ll be back. Is there a phone number I can use? somebody I can get in touch with?”
“I had a cell phone, but I let it go. She sees those pay-as-you-go phones and wants one so bad she can taste it. But who would she call? We don’t know anybody.”
“It might help her to hear from you while you’re on the road.”
“I’ll use a pay phone. Let you know if I’m on schedule. It shouldn’t take me long, unless I have more engine trouble.”
“Take your time. We’ll be fine.”
Something creaked on the porch, and Sheila heard the familiar
bump, bump, bump
of Walter’s tail against the floorboards as he scratched himself. She turned to walk out of the room and brushed John’s arm.
“Sorry,” he said.
Sheila stopped and stared at him, then tentatively reached out and held his arm. He was a strong man with a full day’s growth of stubble. He looked like one of those pictures on the covers of romance books.
She softened her question with a smile, as if it were a joke. “You’re not going to just leave, are you? You
are
coming back.”
John put a hand on her shoulder. “I know it was a risk for you to do this. I appreciate it. And you don’t have to worry about me just taking off.”
“I know how much you love her.” His hand on her shoulder felt warm, like she was being pulled into a mystery. She inched closer, still looking at his face and the scars.
And then it happened. Something strange and wonderful and scary. Something charged and electrical. A line of bumps rose on her arms and she shuddered, physically shook. How long had it been since she’d been spoken to so gently and with such respect? She wanted to ask him if there was a chance—just the slightest chance—that he could find anything more than a passing attraction to her. She wanted to tell him to come back to his daughter and her. They could make a life together.
But that felt too desperate. The emotions and past washed over her, and the possibility of rejection kept her silent and safe. Who was she to think that anyone would ever choose her? She was damaged goods, something for the Goodwill pile of life, and with the stains, rips, and tears of her life, there was a question whether she would even make it into that truck.
The negative voices sprang up in her mind, and instinctively she stepped away. “I should get to bed. What time you think you’ll be leaving?”
“Hopefully before daylight. I’d like to be in Kansas before the sun comes up.”
“I hate that drive,” Sheila said. “Just flat and not a thing to look at but pig farms.”
“You should drive through Texas,” he said.
“I hear it’s the same.” She paused at the stairs and put a hand on the railing. “Have a good trip. Stay safe. Let her hear from you.”
John nodded. “I’ll print that article for you.”
“Good night.”
“And thank you again,” he said. “You’ve been an answer to our prayers.”
“I don’t think anybody’s ever told me that before.” Sheila smiled but it didn’t come easy. It felt weary, like cleaning the toilet. “Don’t worry about her.”
She went to her room, closed the door gently, and sat on the edge of the bed. Through the open window she heard the RV door close, then open again, and he walked across the porch. In a few minutes, the printer spit out some pages. It was all she could do not to run down and read it, but she told herself she needed to wait.
Sheila ran a tub full of water and added the lilac bubble bath until it foamed to the top. After she undressed, her clothes in a clump at her feet, she turned and looked in the mirror. The steam had clouded the view, and she rubbed at it and tried to assess her body objectively. Sags here and there, a bit overstuffed in sections, but overall, not bad for the wear and tear. If there were a Kelley Blue Book for people, she figured she’d be in the used category, private party value, in good condition, free of any major defects, clean title history, no major mechanical problems or rust, and all her tires matched. She turned and looked at her bumper. It had grown and flattened, but you don’t pass up a car because of the bumper.
She sank into the tub, into the soothing, healing waters, and relaxed. For the first time in months she didn’t think of her job. She thought of the girl. And him. And questions about the future and what might come from this spur-of-the-moment decision to take them in. And how if her manager hadn’t been so hard-nosed, they never would have gotten together.
Life. How strange it is. How heartbreakingly random and odd how people find each other or miss each other in their chosen orbits. How surprising when they do find love or even the prospect of it.
Sheila fell asleep to the night sounds. Crickets and the wind in the pines and frogs
garumping
around the pond in Mr. Taylor’s pasture. These were the best sounds in the world.
She woke up once, deep in the night, when the RV engine fired and drove off. Then she rolled over and said a prayer for John and went back to sleep.
8
When he couldn’t sleep, John scrambled off the bed and walked barefoot into the RV’s driver’s seat. He’d worn a groove into the spot just under the accelerator that felt good to his heel, and he liked to drive this way, without shoes, the windows down, air filtering through the cab. The heat of the previous day had left the vehicle warm and stuffy. He’d tossed and turned, thinking what it would be like to sleep in Sheila’s cool basement, until he finally gave up and drove away.
That was one advantage of this rolling house—he could pull over in a parking lot or a rest area and sleep as long as he wanted. That kind of freedom energized him, and the feel of the tires on the pavement and the rumble of the engine and the sensation of movement brought wholeness.
The stars were still out as he headed south on Route 83 into the Springs and then east on Route 24. Through the streetlights he noticed the faint outline of Pikes Peak, a red light warning low-flying planes. The air was cool, and like a child he stuck out a hand and let it wave in the wind. From the weather reports he was heading into an oven. Global warming, some said. He had his doubts. In his mind, summer was summer and tornadoes and hurricanes happened every year, and it wasn’t because he drove his RV or didn’t recycle his plastic water bottles.
He had carefully plotted his route on the worn Rand McNally map he kept in the holder by the front seat. His funds had dwindled to such a low point that just purchasing the gas to Arkansas was going to be tight. He’d dipped deep into his reserves for the RV part, and if he had to do it over again, he would have bought half as much meat for their barbecue. But it seemed like the least he could do for Sheila and Mr. Taylor for all they’d done for him.
Sheila was on his mind as he hit the eastern plains, a flat, barren landscape dotted with farms and a few head of longhorns. He’d worked hard at not getting entangled in a relationship, like the tumbleweeds that bounced along the pasture and over the road. He’d met plenty of eligible women—threats of relationships, storms brewing off the shore of his heart—but no one had gotten as close as Sheila. Her kindness and thoughtfulness at such a vulnerable time was hard to resist. She was right about June Bug. The girl needed more than the road, but settling down came with a cost.
John also knew the attraction was more than just finding June Bug a mother. Something tugged hard at his soul and other parts as well. Sheila was not his perfect match. She was shorter and a little frumpy. But he had felt the heat when she touched his arm. He had wanted to embrace her then and equally wanted to run. Everything was jumbled in his head. Complicated. And as he drove, he let his mind wander to a life in Colorado with a family. Something he’d never really experienced.
The sky lightened a bit as he rolled east, and when he neared the Kansas state line, clouds rippled and spread out above him like an unfurled, endless flag. The sun cast a golden glow on the underside of them, making ridges of yellow, white, and gold as if he were driving into a dream.
The first real stages of fatigue hit him between the state line and Hays. He pulled into an abandoned Dairy Queen parking lot and shut off the engine, stretching and walking around the building, taking a leak in the grass. He opened the cooler and rubbed some ice on his face, surveying the landscape. Everything was flat and hot and different from the world he had left.
Tires humming in the distance, the call of the road came again. John often wondered whether he and June Bug could make it as long-haul truckers. “It would be a smaller living space,” she had said, “but you’d get to see more of the country and get paid for it.”
Her eyes always sparked when she’d get an idea like that. She could see it all planned out, anticipate his next question and the negatives. But there were some negatives she couldn’t anticipate. There were some things she didn’t know, and he didn’t know if he could ever have the heart to tell her. The stay in Colorado had brought it back again. She deserved to know what had happened and who he was. He knew that. But that raised new problems. Like whether she would love him if she knew the truth.
He took a long, cool drink and shook himself awake as he pulled onto the interstate. He traced the yellow marker on the map from Hays to Salina. He’d make the turn there and head south.
John was alone on the road for the first time in years, and he couldn’t help thinking of the two of them getting up and having breakfast, talking and laughing and wondering where they might be.
The tires rolled. Trucks passed. Two people with New Mexico plates and the car packed so tight with clothes it looked like the windows would burst. Another couple, the woman in short shorts, her feet on the dash, her head turned toward the window, her mouth open and eyes closed.
He glanced out the window and saw a farmer on a tractor, dust billowing. A car on an access road racing for work. Or maybe a kid seeing how fast he could go. He went under an overpass and noticed a guy above, smoking, standing at the edge, and looking down at the oncoming traffic.
Seeing the old guy brought back that craving he’d given up years before. Cold turkey. It was a night in June when he’d last taken a puff of a Winston. That night he quit. If he’d have just done it for himself, he probably never would have quit. But he had heard all the stuff about secondhand smoke, and when the girl had come along, he decided it was time to quit. He’d fallen off the wagon a few times, but he’d been proud he never smoked in her presence again.
She’d changed a lot of things in his life. Including wanting to live again.
Sheila stretched as the morning sun peeked over the horizon and lit the room with a yellow glow. Walter sat at attention, watching, wagging his tail, puffing his lips in anticipation, eyes darting. Funny how something as simple as being let outside could make him feel so excited, but that was the animal’s life. She reached for her robe and stood.
“All right, but be quiet about it,” Sheila whispered.
The dog scampered down the stairs, his nails skittering on the hardwood at the bottom and his paws sliding outward until he hit the door. He stood there whining as she opened it and let him out. He went to his favorite spot in the yard and lifted his leg.
She filled the coffeepot, fit the filter, scooped in some extra coffee, and turned it on, then made her own pilgrimage to the bathroom. She stared in the mirror as she washed her hands and studied her face at an angle. A few wrinkles showed around her lips, and she was startled at how much like her mother she looked. Her mother wasn’t ugly by any means, but Sheila wasn’t ready to look like a grandma.
Walter scratched at the back door, and she let him in. “Who’s the hungry puppy? Who’s the hungry puppy?”
The dog nearly wet the floor with excitement. He wagged his tail and twitched and snorted as she let the dry food clang in the metal bowl.
She topped off his water dish and wondered if the noise would wake June Bug. In fact, she was surprised she hadn’t made it downstairs yet.
Sheila hurried through the kitchen to the office and checked the printer tray. Three pages waited, single spaced, and her heart jumped. She wanted to savor the article, so she placed it facedown on the table, poured a cup of coffee, and retrieved half a cantaloupe from the refrigerator.
Settling into her chair, she thought through breakfast and the amount of time it would take her to scramble the eggs, cook the bacon, and make pancakes. The pancake mix only needed water, and she promised herself that as soon as she heard June Bug’s footsteps, she would stop reading and begin.
She turned the page over.
Little Illusions
Maybe it’s the rumble and noise of the road. Maybe it’s the freedom from anything permanent. Or it could be the uncertainty of each day, the take-it-as-it-comes, live-every-moment-to-the-fullest draw that attracts my daughter and me to the broken white lines. It could be any of these and a thousand others, but no matter what the reason, we have chosen to live as American nomads, vagabonds of the bypass, interstate drifters where life intersects the endless lines of asphalt and concrete through the land.
My daughter and I have been traversing the country from Alaska to Florida, Maine to California and everywhere in between since she was about two. There’s a saying about life not being measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the things that take your breath away. It’s clichéd but true. Those sights are too numerous to mention here, but we have watched humpback whales breach in the waters off the Washington coast, combed beaches for treasure after hurricanes in Florida, seen the sunrise at the Alamo and sunset at Gettysburg. Together we’ve laid a wreath at Arlington, seen Old Faithful erupt in Yellowstone, and we’ve done it all on the price of a gallon of gas and parking privileges at Walmart.
Traveling has come easy to my daughter. She’s learned the joys of adapting to new surroundings and living light, needing only a soft pillow and a good book. Learning to read and write came naturally, discovering the alphabet by watching passing license plates and sounding out words like
exit
and
gas, food, and lodging.
She has taken to learning, all cylinders firing in her brain, and she’ll soon become a better writer than her father.
The other day she asked me why everyone doesn’t have an RV. Why do people settle for living in a house built in one place that never moves unless a flood comes? Why would anyone live in one spot all their lives and hardly ever wander? It never occurred to her that people could be happy grounded, pulling their existence from the place they were born or the place they had chosen to call home. And perhaps this is the irony in her words. Her grounding has occurred in the midst of movement, in the subtle motion of traffic, searching for some impermanent destination.
I have spent the past few years listening to tires hum, air brakes crash, and the whoosh of a passing 18-wheeler in the rain. The twitter of hummingbirds searching for food at a rest stop. But the foreign sound most of us never hear is the beat of the human heart. Not the thump-thump of the organ but the sound of hope it brings. I hear it in every word, every decision, every road chosen or passed. It is a foreign concept to listen to the heart. We settle for consonants and vowels, responding to Xs and Os, ones and zeroes of speech, nuts and bolts of sentences that tell us nothing about what’s inside.
In the process of listening for something beneath the surface, I’ve heard difficult things. Accusing voices of the past. Condemning words from people I trusted. And the voice of my daughter has risen above them all, questioning, showing that my search for a roadway to inner peace has few exits. By listening closely, I have seen that belonging arrives not with a space, not with movement and motion, but with miles and miles of heart.
I am not a painter, nor am I a wordsmith. I have not been a lover or a fighter for a long time. I don’t sing, don’t write songs, don’t haul garbage, don’t work nine to five. In fact, I can define my life more by what I am not than by what I am. And one thing I do not have is a home. This rolling bedroom is simply that, not a home but a rest area waiting to be set up or parked again in another place. A portable mattress awaiting exhaustion.
The road’s romance began to fade the moment I realized my daughter was growing up and that she would not always be with me. It was a rude awakening. Her growth has helped me see that what I have is a relentlessly restless heart that knows only the peace of the passing sunset or the comfort of a billowy cloud over an ocean of wheat. I am working; I am plodding along these busy avenues of the soul, wondering and wandering through the past, one wheel stuck in the present, terrified of the future.
I am beginning to give up the little illusions that have come to define me and shape my migration. This life of an itinerant wanderer may seem idyllic to those looking in from outside, but the closer you look, the more you draw near to the cramped spaces we call home and the linoleum that long ago separated from the floor. Would you give up the comfortable flat-screen television and the convenience of a washer and dryer?
The smallest illusion that continues to hold is that there will come a time when I will arrive, when I will turn the key for the last time, pull it out, and be done. Be home. I am coming to believe that in this life that will not happen. There will always be a sense of movement, of striving, of contending for another mile.
In Florida, especially in the winter, it seems to the casual observer that the snowbirds from the North have completed their tasks and are simply waiting. But those watching have never tried to beat those people to the $4.99 buffet. Even in retirement there is movement and a plan for the future, no matter how short that future may seem to others.
Something deep inside, even deeper than the heart, tells me that my time with my daughter is coming to an end. The more questions she asks, the more she delves into the sinews and ligaments of our life together, the more I sense I can only live as a vagabond of the heart and not the road. A friend has told me such, that my daughter needs something different as she heads into the pubescent years. Change is on the horizon that will rock our worlds. I long to hold on to the innocence of this time, the discovery and wonder we’ve seen, the joy of fishing in a rippling stream in Montana or watching a Little League baseball game on a spring day in Iowa. We have not fought the crowds at Disneyland or Disney World because our joy doesn’t have to be manufactured. But perhaps those joys are little illusions as well.