They Almost Always Come Home (7 page)

Oh, Greg! Did you finally find a woman who would embrace

you with her whole heart, nothing held back? You don’t have a great track record for that, do you?

I don’t want Pauline’s caustic, cold voice—liquid nitro-

gen—talking us out of searching for him, or reminding me of myself.

If Jen and I find that list, maybe we can get on the road

before Pauline dials the phone.

I pull open a file cabinet drawer.

Not having Zack and Alex here at Search Central is wrong

on so many levels. When they find out what’s happened and realize that while they were dancing on mountaintops—as happy as little boys with a new tree fort—their father was in trouble and their mother planned to join him, they’ll freak.

If they were here, they could use their techno-machetes to

hack into Greg’s laptop for me. Maybe he told them his pass-

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They Almost Always Come Home

word. I’m not privileged to that information. As it is, I hope Greg left a paper trail.

“Any progress?” Jen asks, entering the office with more energy than ought to be legal. She presses an apple into my hand. She’s more my mother than the woman who gave birth to me. What is it about the matriarchs in our lives? Great role models.

“Nothing yet.”

“Did you look in here?” She pulls open the top drawer of the four-tiered filing cabinet next to Greg’s desk. “Whoa!”

The color-coordinated, carefully labeled folders—as tidy and symmetrical as rake marks in a Japanese garden—can’t help but impress.

“Tried the top drawer already,” I tell her. “All work related. Second drawer is too. Third is household stuff. Maintenance records. Receipts. Bank statements.”

She reaches for the handle as she asks, “What’s in the fourth?”

“It’s marked ‘Personal.’ ”

“You don’t think that at a time like this, rules of cour- tesy might need to be jettisoned in favor of finding your husband?”

My thoughts exactly. That’s not what keeps me from open- ing that drawer. Searching in vain for words to explain what I most fear discovering, I feign interest in a stray piece of paper from Greg’s in-basket. “You can look if you want.”

Jen moves quickly, punctuating her search with a pepper- ing of “hmm” and “aha” and “well, isn’t that interesting?” How can I not respond? “What’s so interesting?”

“Looks as if he’s kept every card or note you’ve ever written him.”

“He did not. He’s not into cards.”

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Jen pulls a bulging folder from the bottom file drawer. “Then

what do you call this?”

Does it surprise me that the cards are chronologically orga-

nized? No. It surprises me that he kept them.

Touching them lightly, as would a detective sifting carefully

through the ashes of a burnt-out home, I glance through a few cards, fighting that familiar constriction in my throat.

“This isn’t . . . helping,” I say. “We’re looking for his equip-

ment list. And clues.”

“You don’t think these are clues, Libby?” Her voice drips

with meaning.

I close the folder and aim to slide it back into the drawer,

reaching in front of my friend like an uncouth uncle at a fam- ily dinner.

“Try that one.” I point to a folder marked “Canadian

Adventures.”

“I was getting to it.” Jen springs to her feet, folder in hand,

without the groans customary to my rising from a squatting position. A few seconds into the folder’s contents, she says, “This is great stuff.”

“What? Did you find it? The supplies list?”

“No.” Her voice barely registers on my internal decibel

meter.

With thoughts of Pauline’s idea-squelching voice in my ear,

I let my exasperation show. “Jen, will you please focus? We don’t have much time. We’re looking for—”

“This could be genuinely helpful,” she says, refusing to mir-

ror the edge in my voice.

“What is it?”

“Greg’s journals.”

“He kept a diary?”

“His trip journals,” she said, flipping through pages of a

pocket-sized spiral memo pad. “These are rich.”

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They Almost Always Come Home

I grab the little book out of her hands and toss it onto the desk. I’ll probably have to apologize later for my roughness. Right now, I’m driven to get our vehicle and canoes pointed north.

“Jenika, find me that list or get out of the way.” She purses her lips.

“Sorry,” I tell her. “It’s that important.”

She stares me down, but her facial features soften like a stick of butter on the kitchen counter in July. Turning back to the bottom drawer, she pulls out the next folder, opens it, and slaps it on the desktop.

“There.”

The list.

Ten or twelve photocopies of it. As if he had more trips in mind for the future.

Was this the work of a man who planned to leave home? I grab one copy and bolt for the door. We have work to do. After two steps into the hall, I stop and retrace my steps. Wrapping my fingers around the spiral notebook, I yank it off the desk and motion for Jen to follow me. We are, after all, in this together.

********

Between Greg’s, Frank’s, and Brent’s garage and basement stashes, we round up enough equipment for the three of us. How many times did I throw a frown or snide comment Greg’s way because he wanted to purchase a second cooking stove or a better-quality sleeping bag? Now I’m grateful for the excesses. Brent’s kelly green canoe hasn’t been road- or water-tested yet. I find it remarkable he’s willing to let us take it on its maiden voyage. Maybe Frank will use that one, and we women will commandeer Frank’s banged-up, dented tin can with

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pointy ends. An echo of Greg’s complaints about how heavy it was to haul it—much less all their supplies and equipment— over the portages when he was a kid makes my back ache.

It finally hits me what I’m about to do. Portaging over

rugged trails that connect one navigable stretch of water to another. Canoeing. Sleeping under the stars. Drinking water with pine needles and microscopic who-knows-what floating in it. Using a log for a toilet seat.

I am in so much trouble.

Frank insists we take fishing equipment—not for pleasure,

but for survival. The word
survival
scares me. It’s hard not knowing exactly how long we’ll be gone. We’ve told our loved ones no more than a week. Jen says she has an appointment a week from Tuesday that would be tough to reschedule. It’s quite a lot already asking her to leave her girls for as long as we’ll be gone. And Brent. What a guy!

Pauline laid down the law for Frank. She is not going to miss

their vacation to Branson over Labor Day weekend, whether we know anything about Greg by then or not. Sweet woman. The other couples sharing the RV with Frank and Pauline are depending on their third of the rent for the unit and their third of the gas money.

Give or take a day, we three have one week to conduct our

search. I can’t dwell too long on the idea that finding anything more than a corpse would be a miracle after this much time anyway.

So, we have a week. We grab loaves of bread, Ziploc bags

stuffed with peanut butter, sticks of summer sausage, pancake mix, slab bacon, string cheese, boxes of hash brown potatoes. We have no way of knowing if it’ll be enough, or if we’ll find a stranded man who’ll be grateful for a crumb of our leftovers.

“We need the freedom to supplement with fish,” Frank

says.

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They Almost Always Come Home

I can see it now. Three adventurers, our pant legs rolled up Huck Finn style, watching fat little red and white bobbers dance on the waters of a crystal clear lake. The sun is in our faces. Frank’s chewing on a piece of straw that he got from— where? Jen and I are hoping we catch something edible without having to impale another worm on a hook or han- dle one of those slimy artificial nightcrawlers Greg claims are lunker killers.

“Anything?” Jen will ask.

“Got a nibble,” I’ll answer.

“Play it cool, Libby,” Frank will add. “Set the hook good before you start to reel him in. And keep that rod tip up.” “This is the life, huh?” Jen will add.

“Ideal day,” I’ll say, “except for the fact that my husband is missing and may be dying and we’re wasting our time filling our frying pan!”

The garage feels crowded. Too many people. Too many thoughts. With Frank looking over my shoulder and continu- ing his rationale for the need for rods and reels and tackle boxes, I pull open the storage door behind which Greg keeps his fishing poles. What could possibly be left in here? Won’t he have taken most of it with him?

My stomach flips end to end. Shouldn’t there be blank places, at least a couple of them, where his fishing poles nor- mally rest? But they’re all here. Every rod holder embraces its mate.

“Curious,” Frank says from behind me.

“He probably bought a couple of new rods and just didn’t tell me.”

Jen asks, “Do you think he would do that?”

“Doesn’t explain this,” Frank says, dragging a sewing machine-sized tackle box out from the floor of the storage

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unit. The scraping sound of plastic on concrete sets my nerve endings on edge.

“Would he have taken a smaller tackle box in his canoe?”

Jen offers, stuffing sleeping bags into a garbage bag-lined pack. “That big one’s probably too heavy for a solo trip, right?”

“Maybe.” Frank seems absorbed in something along the far

wall of the garage. “Both of his telescoping fishing nets are still here. What was my boy thinking?”

As we gather our own needs from the more than ample

supply of fishing tackle left to us, some emotion between anger and fear returns and churns within me.

You didn’t intend on fishing at all, did you, Greg? You lied to me.

To your father. To the boys. Coward! Why couldn’t you tell me to my
face that you were leaving me?

I’ll have to forgive him for that. He could accuse me of plot-

ting my departure with the same level of cowardice.

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hen Frank said, “We’ll get an early start in the morning,” I didn’t know he considered anything after midnight morning. The garage door is open. As I stare into the comfortless night, a rogue breeze tickles a handful of leaves in the driveway. They skate out of the shadows into the garage to escape its teasing. I don’t dare look too far past the Blazer parked just outside the doorway. If a crowd of onlookers is forming, I don’t want to know. This process is private. Personal.

Silence accompanies us as we pack Frank’s Blazer. We should talk about the trip. Plan. Strategize. All the words are locked in some internal dungeon of pain.
Greg, what have you done?

We have a long trip ahead of us with little elbow room for our bodies or our minds. We secured everything we could under the overturned canoes now lashed to the top of the canoe carrier on the Blazer roof. Fishing nets, life vests, canoe paddles, and a few other items are tucked up, strapped in, and ready to go. The final tie-down of the canoes must wait until we close the back end of the vehicle for the last time, which won’t happen until we’ve shoehorned in the rest of our equipment.

6

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My fellow travelers leave companions behind. Pauline and

Brent will hold down the fort while their mates are gone. Frank and Jen will be missed. Other than a message on the boys’ voice mail services, I have no contacts to make.

Brent’s a gem. I know he must worry about letting Jen take

off like this. She’s as inexperienced as I am in these things. But he trusts her.

What he actually said was that he trusts the Lord in her.

Brent promised to pick up my mail and field any can’t-wait

phone calls. I am free to leave home and no one will notice. Or care. Not this time.

Before that thought’s reverberation dies, the phone rings.

Pastor heard from the church secretary, who heard from one of our neighbors, that lights are on at our house. At this hour. I wonder if Mrs. Hensley mentioned the canoes.

Assured there is no emergency other than the one he already

knows about, Pastor asks how I’m holding up and tells me the elder board is planning another prayer vigil. Can I help it if I’m distracted? Every minute spent celebrating the wonder of “the family of God” is another minute Greg is in trouble.

“Did I call at a bad time? It’s three in the morning. Of course

it’s a bad time.”

“What? No. Well, yes. We’re . . . um, Greg’s dad and Jen

and I are . . . we’re packing to head north. We hope to retrace Greg’s trip.”

No immediate answer. He’s probably searching his brain for

a way to tell me God loves the mentally ill. “Libby?”

“Yes?” I feign innocence, though I know his next words are

bound to be an exhortation of biblical proportions.

“If that’s what you believe the Lord is calling you to do, then

you can be confident He’ll go ahead of you.”

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Those words would comfort me if I’d thought to ask Him first.

********

It’s almost time to take our final bathroom breaks prior to buckling ourselves into the Blazer when Pastor jogs up the driveway and into the garage. How did he get here so fast? “Looks like you’re all set,” he says, eyeing the overloaded gypsy wagon for the outdoorsman. And women. “It’ll have to do,” Frank says.

Pastor and Frank have met several times on multiple Easter Sundays and Christmases.

“You be careful up there,” Pastor says, his eyes sweeping the lot of us. “And keep in touch as able. Do you have cell phones with you?”

Jen jumps in to explain that there is no cellular service where we’re headed. She might want to dive into an expla- nation of the wonders of satellite phones, but we have a full day’s drive and an unknown future ahead of us. So I pull away from the communication curb faster than she can and tell him, “Thanks for coming to see us off, Pastor. That means a lot. We hope to be back before the week is out.”