They left Atlin the next day with a paper bag full of their meager possessions. Gennie didn’t realize how long the drive was going to be. Day turned into night and they still weren’t out of British Columbia. Gennie spent most of her time looking at the beautiful scenery while Ben peppered Malcolm and Colleen with questions about San Francisco. At nine o’clock, they stopped at a motel in a small town probably not much bigger than Atlin.
“How far are we from San Francisco now?” Ben asked excitedly.
“Probably about another two thousand miles away,” Malcolm replied. He looked exhausted.
“I thought we’d be in America,” Ben said.
“You thought wrong,” Malcolm replied. “BC is absolutely huge. Let’s get some shuteye. We have a very long day tomorrow.”
Malcolm got a room with two double beds. He and Colleen slept in one and Gennie and Ben slept in another. Gennie couldn’t remember the last time she slept so well. She had spent the last two months sleeping on a braided rug with a small pillow and a sleeping bag. She wasn’t happy at all when she left Atlin but now she began to see how much better her life could be. Plus, she hadn’t seen Ben this ecstatic in a very long time.
The next day they ate breakfast at nine o’clock and were off on their way by ten. It was nine o’clock at night before they stopped at a good-sized town that cut through the Yellowhead Highway. They stayed at a resort lined with small cabins.
“Are we almost there?” Ben asked, almost as tiredly as Gennie felt.
“Uh, maybe about halfway,” Malcolm replied, “I think.”
The next day they ate breakfast at the cabin and left at ten o’clock again. They drove for another ten hours until they arrived at a town called Hope.
“I hope I don’t spend the rest of my life in this car,” Ben complained as they arrived at another motel. “This is getting boring!”
“It was your idea,” Gennie said. “You’re the one who wanted to leave Atlin and go to the big city.”
“Don’t worry kids,” Malcolm said. “The US is only about an hour away from here. Hopefully, we’ll be home by tomorrow.”
The next day they left the motel by ten again. Less than an hour later, they arrived at the point of entry for the US. The traffic was backed up so they had to wait about thirty minutes to get pass it. Ben cheered when they finally crossed it.
“Have you ever been in the lower forty-eight?” Malcolm asked.
“No,” Ben replied. “We’ve never been anywhere except Willow, where we grew up and Atlin.”
“I think you’ll like it,” Colleen replied.
“We’re in Washington, right?” Gennie asked.
“Yes,” Colleen said.
“How far do we have to go to get to San Francisco?” Gennie asked.
“I think it’s still another thousand miles away,” Colleen replied. “We’ll probably be there by tomorrow.”
Ben groaned. “Geez, the map in my classroom made it look so tiny. I thought everything was just a few hours away from each other.”
“You should have paid more attention in school,” Gennie scolded.
“Well, that’s in the past,” Ben replied. “I’m going to get a paper and look for a job as soon as we get to San Francisco.”
Gennie saw Colleen give Ben a concerned look but she didn’t say anything. Gennie knew that was a sign of trouble. She worried that if they gave Ben a hard time about not going to school, he might run away.
Nine hours later, they were in a small city in Oregon. They stopped a large brown Victorian house with lush gardens.
“This is where we stayed on our honeymoon,” Colleen said. “We went back here two years ago and we had a great time.”
It seemed much cozier to Gennie than the motels they previously stayed at. Gennie wondered if their house looked anything like this.
“This is it kids,” Malcolm said. “We’re only about fifteen miles to the California border. Tomorrow we’ll be in San Francisco.”
The room they stayed in was spacious. Malcolm and Colleen slept in the four-poster queen sized bed while Ben and Gennie slept in a full size sofa bed on the opposite end of the room.
“Finally,” Ben whispered to Gennie, “I can’t wait to get a job and start saving up for my restaurant.”
“I hope they don’t make you go to school,” Gennie whispered back.
“They won’t. They haven’t said anything to me about it.”
“Just because they haven’t said anything doesn’t mean they won’t.”
“Well, I’m not going. How about you? Are you going back to school?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Are you going to get to a job?”
“I don’t know, Ben. I don’t have my entire life planned out like you have.”
“Don’t be snippy. I’m just asking.”
“I don’t know. I hope the kids in San Francisco are nice. I heard big city kids are snobby.”
“Honestly, I don’t care because I won’t have to deal with them.”
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about where we’re going to live anymore and if someone is going to beat us up in the middle of the night because they’re hungry and in a bad mood.”
“Yeah, that’s for sure,” Gennie said. “I don’t miss that.”
“I wonder what Bryan would think if he knew that what he did was the best thing that’s ever happened to us,” Ben said. “I’d love to see the look on the face when he finds out we’re still alive and doing great.”
“Honestly,” Gennie replied, “I don’t give a damn what Bryan thinks, now or ever. He can rot in hell for all I care.”
“He’ll get what’s coming to him someday,” Ben said.
“I hope so,” Gennie replied.
Ben kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you for coming with me,” he said. “I know you didn’t want to.”
Gennie nodded. “I wanted you to be happy.”
“Are you happy, though?”
“Uh, I guess so. I think Gracie was right. It was the best for us.”
“You know I’d never leave you behind, right? If you didn’t want to come, I wouldn’t have come either.”
Gennie nodded. She turned around in case she started crying. She already shed tears once this week; she didn’t want to seem like a big baby.
Chapter 11: September 3
What They Left Behind Page 10