Chapter Two On My Way It was dusk when I pulled into the driveway of Johnny’s chalet high in the mountains west of Denver, among boulders and wildflowers. Butterflies fluttered in my belly as I saw my brother and his wife moving about through the living room window: I was really here. Johnny and Cherrie welcomed me warmly and made me feel at home right away, leading me into the nursery, where I would sleep in a single bed near my six-month-old godson and nephew Josh’s crib. He had grown so much since my visit just after he was born in February. We peered into the crib together, whispering so as not to wake the littlest angel of the family. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Cherrie said, squeezing my hand. Johnny owned a gallery, The Hands of Man, in the nearby town of Evergreen, showcasing the work of local artists in ceramics, silver, and stone. Artists were a big part of this community, along with hippies, cowboys, young families, and old timers who liked to live the simpler life in the Colorado Rockies. I expected to fit right in. During the day I helped Cherrie at home while Johnny ran the gallery. In a few months, I would work in the gallery two days a week making silver jewelry at the workbench Johnny also used and waiting on the occasional tourist or customer who came to shop. It smelled woodsy and earthy in there, with the cedar shelves and burning piñon pine in the pot-bellied stove. At night, Johnny cooked our hometown favorites—fried chicken and mashed potatoes, hamburgers or steak on the barbecue. We stayed up late getting high on homegrown and laughing until our sides split, listening to the Moody Blues. As teenagers and through our twenties we had lived in our own little worlds, and it felt good to share some old favorites as we made new memories. Cherrie and baby Josh cuddled close to the tremendous love between brother and sister. On weekends, Johnny and I hiked in the mountains and he listened to my musings, never trying to fix anything, just listening or offering to help in any way. I loved him for his unconditional acceptance of me as I tried to make sense of this freedom I had chosen. With Johnny’s help, before long I found a one-room log cabin to rent on Turkey Creek Road in Conifer, fifteen minutes from his house. I didn’t have much with me, but Johnny and Cherrie scrounged up a futon from their old apartment in Denver, pulled some cookware out of storage, and unpacked some chipped pottery that hadn’t sold in the gallery. I sewed gingham curtains for my country cabin and wove soft cowhide into pillows for the funky old couch. I had a great time perusing yard sales for treasures, and embroidering or sewing what needed my touch. Winter would be cold, and I had a cord of wood delivered for my big moss rock fireplace. When that was stacked neatly outside and covered with a tarp, I stood back and surveyed it all. Living like this for the winter would feed my pioneering soul. As soon as I was settled in, I took a job waitressing at the Little Bear, a tavern in Evergreen popular with the cowboys and hippies, who somehow got along harmoniously. I spoke by phone every few weeks with Eddie, who was creating his new life five hours away in Aspen, until he told me (on my thirtieth birthday) that it wasn’t time for him to be in a relationship. This was my first big rejection in my single life, but I got over it pretty quickly. Eddie and sailing to Spain had been a bridge. I was ready to fall in love with my life now, and I had the cutest little log cabin this side of the Mississippi. I had almost forgotten what autumn turning to winter can do to your spirit when you stand under the big night sky and breathe in the scent of pine and wood fires in the crisp Colorado air. These were the mountains of my childhood, the getaway I had loved as a child, sitting beside clear, rushing streams while my father or Nank fished and I counted leaves sailing by on their way to somewhere. From this good place, New York seemed never to have existed. It was in my blood, this thirst for adventure. I come from a long line of pioneers. My great-grandparents left Scotland in the 1890s with their three boys—one of them my grandfather Nank—to travel west by covered wagon in search of everything America might be. They settled near Ames, Iowa. Fifty years later, as soon as World War II ended, my parents settled on the Missouri side of State Line, with their baby girl, Carolyn, as my birth name was spelled. Three years later their second child, Johnny, was born, completing the picture: a handsome Irishman for a dad with piercing blue eyes and black wavy hair, a beautiful young mother with almond-shaped eyes and a radiant smile, two cars parked in the driveway, a manicured lawn out front, weekends golfing and sunning at the country club. Acres and acres of cornfields surrounded our house and I romped there with my brother and our dog, running down the rows and dropping into their shade to watch clouds pass by. Sometimes I played in our yard, swinging on a tree swing or climbing the apple tree for the view of “forever”—anywhere else, the horizon line, and all its possibilities. From the outside, everything at home looked great, but I knew better. My father had a hot temper, and he and my mom fought so loud sometimes I dreamed of leaving home and taking Johnny with me. One night, I decided it was time to take action. While our parents raged in their bedroom down the hall, I scooped up Johnny in my arms and held him tight. “Let’s call the police.” He looked at me with wet eyes as I dialed “O” on our telephone. “Now, little girl,” the woman at the other end of the line said to me, “you can’t be bothering us with family squabbles.” I hung up. Squabbles? “Okay, Johnny. That’s it. Tomorrow we’ll run away to Nank and Nanny’s.” I was sure I could remember the way to our grandparents’ house. That night I made piles of “supplies”—dresses, clean underwear, clothes for Johnny, my new pink Easter hat—and we went to sleep in our beds. When we woke up, the house was still quiet. I emptied a box of Cheerios into a paper bag while Johnny pulled the Radio Flyer wagon around the front. “Get in,” I said, and Johnny obeyed, legs tucked under as I surrounded him with our supplies. We walked for blocks, stopping at a church to use the bathroom. The wagon flipped once on a turn, muddying the folded clothes, but I piled them back in. I felt heroic. I was Johnny’s angel! I was saving our lives! Our grandparents’ housekeeper, Minnie, answered the door when we finally reached our destination. “Well, look who’s here!” she cried, looking us over. “Oh dear. Your grandparents is out. When they gets back they’ll see as to what to do.” She ushered us inside and gave us cookies and milk. Our parents picked us up that night. They scolded us in front of our grandparents and warned me never to do that again. They were especially angry that I’d called the police. (The police had phoned them and tattled on me. And I’d thought they were supposed to protect me!) It would be years before I would leave my family again for a chance at something better. When I was twelve, my family splintered and would never pick up the pieces. My mother had a nervous breakdown and overnight was living in a hospital for the mentally ill. The asylum was in Kansas City, a drive from our home in Prairie Village, one of the many suburban communities that had sprouted up on the prairies after the war. She stayed for a few months in an old brick building with bars on the windows, where they sedated her and gave her shock therapy to try and cure her. Both Johnny and I missed her terribly. When she did come home, she slept most of the day and night, but besides that, she didn’t seem too different. Then one day not too long after, they packed her up again and sent her even farther away, to Menninger’s Clinic for the Mentally Ill, in Topeka. To take care of things at home while Dad was away all day at his dry cleaning plant in Kansas City, he hired a housekeeper. I didn’t care—I was out most of the time, losing myself in my social life. I lived for dances, parties, and spending nights as often as I could with my best girlfriends, Gerri and Nash. When my mother was finally released from Menninger’s, she tried to step back into her role as wife and mother, but she couldn’t. She had been diagnosed as manic depressive and schizophrenic, Dad said, and her doctor and her father, Grandpa Nank, had advised him to file for divorce and take full custody of the kids. Before I knew what was happening, Mom was back at Menninger’s, Dad had sold our house (goodbye, beloved apple tree!), and Johnny and I moved in with Nank and Nanny, leaving Dad free to live closer to work in Kansas City. He would see us on weekends. I loved my grandparents, especially Nank. When we were younger
