Breathe and blow.
What will I need that I didn’t pack? I haven’t taken even a weekend trip for so long I feel disoriented about sleeping somewhere else. I worry about toothpaste and contact lens solution. This is simpler than worrying about what will happen when I reach my destination, or the recurring images of my car drawn magnetically toward a snowy precipice like a jumper to the edge of abridge.
I climb in the car and start the engine. Should have warmed it up. I pull on gloves and fasten my seat belt, breathe and blow. At the bottom of the hill beside our mailbox, I turn left toward the main road.
The snow mounds high along the roadsides, but the sky is a bright, blinding blue. I fumble for my sunglasses. Ten hours to Spokane, maybe more, but I’ve made a plan: drive until dusk, get a cheap, safe room somewhere and sleep like a glacier. I’ve brought medication to make sure of it. Then I’ll finish the trip Sunday morning, find a room in Spokane and locate the prison. It’s been so many years since I visited Lenora there, I can’t remember where it is.
I should have called ahead. I think regular visiting hours at the prison are on Sunday afternoon—at least, that’s how it used to be. I may not get there in time for that, and I seem to remember every visitor’s name had to be on an approved list. It’s possible they won’t let me in.
Hope rises at this thought; I wouldn’t have to face her, and it wouldn’t be my fault. But if I don’t see her tomorrow, I’ll have to try again. Because what I told David was true. Though I’d never admitted it before even to myself, I must see Lenora again.
I keep driving, my fists stiff as stone on the wheel.
At the main road, instead of turning east toward Calgary to catch the superhighway south to the U.S. border, I turn right, toward the resort areas of Canmore and Banff, the scenic route. The trip will take a bit longer this way, which I recognize as avoidance behavior. But the route is beautiful, and I know the roads will be cleared of snow, for the ski traffic. Tourists uber alles.
David and I drove this road together when we moved to his inherited house, but I haven’t traveled it since. The scenery is even more spectacular than I remembered. Perhaps that’s because I’m seeing it alone, in captured glimpses like photographs, while I concentrate on the two-lane road. After an hour my hands cramp from gripping the wheel so hard. I slump back in the seat and will myself to relax, shaking out one hand and then the other.
Another two hours slip easily beneath my wheels; I’m beginning to enjoy the drive. Being on my own like this is scary, but heady, too.
David made waffles and eggs for our late Saturday breakfast, but by five o’clock I’m hungry again and desperately need to pee. Up ahead I see a roadside hotel where tables and chairs sit outdoors on a wooden deck with a view of snowy peaks. Today the tables are covered with snow and the deck deserted, but I like the looks of the place and pull into the parking lot.
The small dining room is cozy, with rose-colored tablecloths and a smoke-stained fireplace where yellow flames leap and crackle. I use the rest room first, then choose a table where it’s warm but not too close to the fire, and order a sandwich.
Only a few other diners come and go. I listen to their conversations while pretending to concentrate on my food. An old woman tells her younger companion whose face I cannot see, “You’re still looking for what you can get, honey. It isn’t what you get, it’s what you give.”
The sandwich is plain with store-bought potato chips on the side, but the bread is good and the chicken tastes fresh. I consider staying here for the night, but the food has restored my energy and I want more miles behind me. By five forty-five I’m back on the road, switching on my headlights in the early darkness of mountain shadows.
The route winds south through Kootenay National Park and finally joins a thin, Canadian version of the Columbia River just below its source in the Columbia Reach. I catch glimpses of it in the headlights.
I’m following the river that leads back to my childhood, the same waters where I once tried to drown. That history seems like a hundred years ago. And it seems like yesterday.
By the time I reach the outskirts of Cranbrook, my chest feels heavy and my contacts grate like sand in my eyes. I stop at the first motel that looks well lit. The room is spare and clean, uncomplicated, and suits me perfectly. I take my sleeping medicine first thing, a nice big dose, then a hot shower. I rush through the other bedtime rituals and fall into bed, asleep almost as soon as my head hits the pillow.
At daybreak, in the peculiar blue light that filters through the motel curtains, I awake and think of David.
I forgot to call. Damn.
I roll over and switch on the bedside lamp, find my glasses and read the instructions for dialing long distance. David answers on the third ring, his voice husky from sleep though he sounds alert. “Roberta?” is the first thing he says.
“Yes, it’s me. Sorry I forgot to call last night. I was so tired….”
“Where are you?”
I can tell he’s both angry and worried. “Umm.” I try to remember the name on the map. “Cranbrook, I think. Yes, that’s it.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I enjoyed the drive, actually. The mountains—”
“Stay right there. I’ll come to you. I can be there before noon.”
“No, sweetheart. Don’t do that. I’m fine, really. I’m going to get some breakfast and get on the road so I’ll be in Spokane early.”
“Roberta—”
“I’ll try to see Lenora today, and get a room in Spokane for the night. I’ll call again this evening. Be sure the answering machine is turned on if you go out.” I pause for courage. “How is the exhibit coming along?”
I hear his sigh and the rustle of bedding and picture him sinking back onto his pillow. “What if you can’t see her today?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’ll let me come back on Monday. Meanwhile I’ll find a mall and window shop.”
“You hate shopping.”
“Not through windows.”
“What if you run into that Harley character?”
“What if I do? He’s not going to hurt me, David,” I say, feeling the irrational flutter in my stomach that betrays my confidence. “After all, I’m doing what he asked. So far, at least.”
“You’re scaring me, Roberta.”
“I know and I’m sorry. But right now, it can’t be helped.”
“I love you,” he says.
Why is it easier for him to say this over the phone than when I’m right in front of him? This small weakness endears him to me; my own flaws hang unfurled like tattered flags.
“I love you, too.” And when I say it from this distance, I realize it’s true.
Back on the road, I turn on the radio for company, find only static and switch it off. The snow along the roadsides thins and grays with decreasing latitude as I near the checkpoint at the U.S. border. It reminds me of Christmas morning when I was eleven, the Christmas of the shell necklace.
Shady River, Oregon, 1974
On my almost-new bike, I gasped and teetered up the slope to Rockhaven in the winter morning stillness. Whatever remorse I might have felt for abandoning my mother to her bottle on Christmas Day dried up with my tears in the freezing air. I left the bike in the driveway and rang the bell.
They greeted me at the door as cheerfully as if I’d remembered to call before I came.
“Merry Christmas, Sarsaparilla!” Cincy chirped.
“Merry Christmas,” Lenora said. “Come into this house!”