They Almost Always Come Home (20 page)

“This is as far as Greg planned to go. We’re here. We . . . we missed him.”

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CYNTHIA RUCHTI

Hope won’t get its security deposit back, considering the

mess it left behind.

I scramble to cover its tracks. “Wait a minute. We’ve only

been on the water a few days. Greg would have had more than a week of his trip left. Wouldn’t he have gone at least another two or three days deeper into the wilderness before turning around?”

“Not what he said. He said he planned to get where he was

headed and plant himself. Even adventurers get tired of tear- ing down and setting up camp, you know.”

“But,” Jen says, “it’s possible he changed his mind, isn’t it?”

“He has a right to change his mind.” I’m defending an action

my husband may have taken as much as three weeks ago.

Frank removes his cap and wipes his forehead with his

sleeve. “How are we supposed to cover a million acres of woods and water, ladies, if he’s not where he said he was going to be?”

A million? I hope he’s exaggerating. But from what we’ve

passed already in these days, I fear he’s not.

“Needle in a haystack, I’m afraid,” Frank says. He wobbles,

then crumbles.

On his knees, he sobs like a professional mourner from a

culture far from this corner of the earth. Jen and I join him in posture and tears. We’re wetting with our tears the ground where at least one of us was sure we’d find him.

It’s over. The search is over. It’s final. He’s gone.

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J
en catches the cooking pot before it boils dry. Wouldn’t want to set the woods on fire. She refills the pot, but I think we all know none of us will eat much tonight.

We gather wood because that’s what one does. We start a campfire in the stone circle. It makes the scene even more beautiful than it was before. Somehow beauty seems wrong. It also seems wrong that the darker the sky grows, the more spectacular are the flames.

As I stare them down, lost in their burning life, Jen asks, “Could we pray together?”

“What for?” Frank is beyond courtesy.

“Because,” Jen says, “we’re in a desperate place. We have no resources of our own. God’s the only One who knows where Greg is.”

“And He’s not talking,” Frank adds.

“He might.” That’s me. My voice. My shaky but authentic conviction. “He might talk if we give Him a chance.”

“It must be these bumps on my head. I halfway believe you.”

Jen and I form bookends for Frank on his log. I take his hands in mine. “Frank, you know we love you, don’t you?”

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He purses his lips and exhales as if he’s blowing out birth-

day candles. “You going to love me more if I admit I need God? Is that it?”

I fish for a satisfactory answer for him, a way to capture the

concept of eternity. “Not more, Frank. Longer.”

He’s as still as the granite underfoot. Then he pushes him-

self to a standing position and says, “Well . . .” as if he has someplace to go or a chore pressing on his schedule.

Jen and I are left alone on the log while he wanders some-

where beyond the reach of the fire’s glow. It’s time to pray. Most definitely.

Far from a traditional “Lord, help us find Greg” prayer, we’re

moved to take a different tack. The search for Greg is over. When did we switch from rescue operation to recovery? It feels as ominous as it sounds when announced on a newscast. Even recovery is unlikely.

From the shards of evidence we have and the bulk of posi-

tive evidence we’re missing, we can only conclude that he died somewhere in his beloved wilderness who knows how long ago. And who knows where. The fact that we’ve found no sign of his body or his canoe can only mean one thing. Both are lying at the bottom of one of these pristine lakes. Deeper than we can see or reach. Beyond rescue.

The thought stops my heart. One second. Two. Then it

starts beating again. How is that possible? Do. Not. Tell. Me. Life. Goes. On.

A kind hand uses a now-gentle breeze to brush stray hairs

from my face and caress my shattered heart. On the breeze float the inaudible words, “Libby, I won’t let you go.”

My whole body aches to fall into their arms—Greg’s and

God’s. Only one of those possibilities is still an option for me.

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“I will never leave you nor forsake you,” God says in His Word. When you give it a chance, faith remembers the impor- tant things.

Greg’s gone. I prayed we’d find him. Now what? How am I supposed to pray? The answer is, apparently, flat on the ground near the water that claimed my husband.

I’m vaguely conscious of the presence of my traveling com- panions hovering nearby, like attending angels, bless them. Wisely, they leave me to my grief—my surrender.

It is indeed a prayer of surrender. What makes it all the more costly is the fact that a week ago I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Greg. Not until I started to unearth who he really was and my own role in poisoning what we had together.

The rocks feel warm beneath my body, my arms, my hands spread out before me. The smell of terra firma fills my nostrils and reminds me how far I am from heaven—how far anything happening on this planet is from God’s ideal. “Never leave you.”

I so desperately need to believe that. I choose to believe it.
Lord, I single-handedly turned the loss of our daughter into a
double tragedy
. My confession unleashes a new fount of tears.
Forgive me. Help me.

Having to surrender Greg now, when there’s no earthly chance of explaining to him what I’ve discovered about myself and about us could cripple me.

But I can’t let it.

This flat piece of glacial granite is as good an altar as any on which to lay my broken dreams. Greg’s not coming home.
Not to me anyway, Lord. He’s come Home to You.

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CYNTHIA RUCHTI

“Libby?” Jen whispers across the midnight darkness of our

tent.

I poke my head out from under my sleeping bag like a turtle

testing the safety outside his shell. “What is it?”

“You don’t have to hide to read Greg’s journals.”

“Hide? I wasn’t . . . I was afraid that . . . I didn’t want the

light to keep you awake.”

“I know you need privacy, and I wish I could offer you

some. But I assure you your flashlight is not one of the twenty things keeping me awake.”

How long before either of us can sleep through the night?

“Lib?”

“Yeah, thanks. I wondered if I was starting to breathe too

much of my own carbon dioxide under there.”

“Find anything meaningful in your reading? You don’t have

to tell me details.”

Meaningful? How can I explain what it means to read his

words, to see his blocky, no-frills penmanship and discover that his heart had softer edges than I ever knew? How can I tell her how it feels to know he thought of me while he was here, but his thoughts were laced with pain? “It makes me feel closer to him.”

“Good.”

“I can almost hear his voice as I read.” I shift to lean on one

elbow. “Jen, when we get home, memorize your husband’s face and voice. You think you’ll never forget, that he’ll always be there to refer to when you need a reminder, but it’s not always true.”

Jen rises on an elbow too. An onlooker would think we’re

simply gabbing, slumber-party style.

“Maybe I should tell Brent and the girls to memorize mine,”

she says, her words floating like dandelion fluff but landing like anvils on my heart.

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I didn’t know she still thought of cancer as something that might recur. “What do you mean?”

Jen shakes her head. “Nothing. Just thinking about all the things we take for granted.”

The things we take for granted? My personal theme song.

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M
y throat is raw. I crawl out of my sleeping bag and slip on my shoes as quietly as possible to avoid waking Jen. It must be shortly before sunrise. There’s barely enough light filtering through the sides of the tent to make out which of the shoes near the door are mine and which are Jen’s.

I unzip the tent opening one tooth at a time. There’s no

sense waking the others because I’m restless and I’ve cried myself into clogged sinuses and a raw throat. When the open- ing’s an inch larger than I am, I sneak through and zip it shut again.

It will take all the fortitude the Lord and I can muster to

leave this place in a couple of hours. The finality of admitting defeat and heading home without Greg will make the trip back to civilization agonizing with every paddle stroke.

I find my canteen hanging from a low branch. Almost empty.

I’ll filter more water so we’ll have enough to cook breakfast and fill all three canteens.

It’s another “mist-ry” morning. Opalescent mists hang

over the still water in this secluded cove. Through the nar- row opening, I can see companion mists hovering out on the open water. If this were a movie setting, the accompanying

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sound track would have to be something with violins—no, deep-throated violas or cellos, and in a minor key. Such rare, unspoiled elegance.

Oh, Greg! We could have watched this movie together. We should
have. Ask me again. Ask me one more time to join you and I’ll come
to this window to watch the “mist-ry” unfold. I’ll climb out of my
sleeping bag at three in the morning to take in the star exhibit.
A loon glides through the mist into the protection of our cove.

“Don’t say it,” I whisper to the bird. “Don’t tell me he’s gone.”

She doesn’t listen to me. She lifts her pointed beak to the sky, stretches her neck to swan length, and ruffles the water with her wingtips while calling, “He’s go-go-go-go-gone. Go-o- o-o-gone.”

I’ve heard that if you tip your head up when tears threaten, you can keep them from spilling. Urban legend. It doesn’t always work. And people you love don’t always come home. Nothing’s left of the fire in the circle. Not even one ember worth fanning. I build a teepee of pine needles, dry leaves, and brittle twigs. I’ve never been good with lighters, so I use one of the box matches from the emergency supplies to ignite the kindling. It smolders and smokes, producing a smell I won’t soon forget. I’ll miss the campfires. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but I will.

A seasoned fire builder after just a few days of experience, I carefully time the laying on of fingerling wood, then forearm- sized, then biceps. The fire crackles and spits. There’s no point gathering more wood. We won’t be here that long.

I untie the knotted rope holding our food pack and let it down to the ground. It’s appreciably lighter than the day we entered the wilderness. Or am I stronger? Both.

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CYNTHIA RUCHTI

A quick check of our remaining food supplies underscores

the harsh reality that it’s past time to head home. Our fishing rod case leans against a nearby tree. In minutes I have one of Greg’s favorites assembled. I open the unused tackle box and choose a likely looking artificial lure, avoiding the ones that strike me as cute or fancy in favor of an ugly one that might tempt a fish used to looking at other fish all day long.

With two boys in the house and an avid fisherman hus-

band, I couldn’t help but learn a few things about fishing. It takes me several casts to get the lure away from the shoreline and land it with a kiss on the water rather than an uncouth swat—the “cannonball” of fishing techniques.

The sun manages to push itself through the birth canal of

trees behind me and uses its laser beams to evaporate the mist. I twitch my rod tip like I’ve seen Greg do hundreds of times.

I’m not sure if I want to catch something as much as I want

to experience the rhythm of the motion. Cast and retrieve. Wait and watch. Offer the bait. See if they’re hungry. Fishing in a world so quiet I can hear the line slipping through the eyelets on the rod. I’m sure there’s a name for those things. It really doesn’t matter. I’m not here to understand fishing but the fisherman.

Something strong and determined says with a tug on my

line, “Sure, lady. I’ll play.”

“Keep your rod tip up, Libby!” It’s Frank, pulling his boots

on as he stumbles toward me. “Don’t give him any slack. But don’t force him, either. Let him run for a bit.”

I’m tempted to hand him the rod. He knows what he’s

doing. But he may not need this as badly as I do.

The fish and I dance around each other for several minutes.

Once, he explodes out of the water, shakes his angry, bug-eyed head, and dives unceremoniously back to the depths.

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“I’d give that no more than an 8.5 with points off for lesser degree of difficulty,” Jen says. So it’s officially a party now. My cheering section sounds a little like gamblers at the blackjack table. “Come on, little fish. Mama needs some break- fast,” and “Bring it on home. Let’s bring it on home.”

I’m winning the battle. As I reel it in with a smoother motion than is natural considering the pounding of my heart, the fish edges closer to shore. Frank sneaks down to the water’s edge and motions me to maneuver the fish toward him. He leans down, sticks his thumb in the fish’s mouth, and raises it out of the water.

“That’s a beaut, Libby. A fine fish.”

Jen pats me on the back repeater-rifle style with several “I’m so proud of you” comments.

“Is it a bass?” I ask.

“Smallmouth bass. That’s right.” Frank has undone the hook from its mouth and is bringing it toward me. “Enough for all three of us to have a nibble and a half.”