Walking on Water: A Novel

by Richard Paul Evans

  Nicole held up her phone and took a picture. “Perfect,” she said.

  “Take one with me,” Kailamai said.

  Nicole took several pictures of the two of us, then said, “Let’s get one with all three of us.” She turned to the man standing in line behind her. “Would you mind taking our picture?”

  “No worries,” he said with an Australian accent.

  She handed him her phone. “Just push this button.”

  “Brilliant,” he said.

  The women stood at my sides while the man snapped picture after picture with Nicole’s phone. Finally, after six or so shots, Nicole said, “Thank you. I think that’s enough.”

  As we walked from the buoy Nicole looked down at her phone, then texted something.

  Kailamai said, “Well, Al my pal, you’ve done it. You’ve walked all the way to the end of the country. You can’t go any farther without drowning.”

  “Actually,” Nicole said, glancing over the railing surrounding the buoy, “I think that beach right there is farther south.”

  I looked out toward it. “She’s right,” I said. Farther south or not, I liked the idea of the beach. Ever since I had begun, every time I pictured myself reaching Key West I had seen myself walking into the water. “Let’s get in the water.”

  We retraced our steps along South Street, then walked south down a short side road.

  The beaches of Key West were not what I had imagined when I first set off, though, to be honest, I had never really given the details of my destination much thought. I had assumed that I would find long white sandy beaches stretching the length of the island, like in Hawaii. Like most things, the dream was greater than the reality. Key West is little more than a coral rock in the sea. If there’s sand on the ground, someone likely put it there.

  At the end of the road was a strip of sandy beach, surprisingly vacant, which I suspect had to do with both the season and the late hour.

  As I walked onto the sand I felt like I was in a dream. I wished it were a dream. I wished I could wake up and look at my beautiful McKale and say, “You’ll never believe what I just dreamed.”

  I slid my backpack off, then sat down in the sand and untied my shoes, which were trashed. They were the seventh or eighth pair since I’d left Seattle—I had lost count. I think my socks were original. At least they looked like they had borne the brunt of thirty-five hundred miles. I peeled them off and threw them aside. Then I stood and turned back. Nicole and Kailamai were standing at the edge of the sand as if they didn’t dare step on it.

  “Are you coming?”

  Nicole shook her head. “This is your moment. We’ll wait here.”

  I took off my hat and threw it on the ground. Then I reached into my pack and pulled out the yellow envelope my father had given me.

  I walked to the edge of the water. I stepped onto the firm, wet sand, and the gulf waters rushed over my feet and ankles, cooling them, blessing them for their journey. That’s the moment I knew I had reached the end of my walk. That’s when I felt my journey end. The realization washed over me as clearly as the water over my feet.

  I tore off the end of the envelope, then tilted it, holding my hand beneath the opening. A pinkish-red seashell slid out into my palm. It took me only a moment to recognize what I was looking at. It was the seashell my father had affixed to the plaque in his room—the one I had noticed missing that first night back—the same seashell he’d asked my mother to marry him with.

  There were two letters inside the envelope. The first was handwritten on lavender parchment. It was a letter from my mother to my father, written just a week before she died.

  February 7, 1988

  My dearest heart,

  Soon I will sleep. What shall I dream of, my love? I will dream of you, of course. I will dream of you standing in the waters of Key West, your pants rolled up to your knees, and you pointing your little Instamatic at me while I posed for you. I will dream of you lifting that shell and giving it to me and asking me to be yours forever. And, forever, I will kiss you and say “yes.”

  I will dream of our little boy and his bright eyes and happy smile.

  And I will dream for the three of us, a place for us to be, a sanctuary where hearts will never break again. This is my dream, my heart. Never forget that there is no end to us, as there can be no end to love. Love must last forever, or why else would there be love? Until then, I will dream,

  Always,

  your Kate

  I opened the second letter, which was typed on plain white stationery. This letter was addressed to me.

  My Dear Son,

  If you are reading this letter it means that I was not able to be with you when you reached Key West. I am sorry for that. It was a hope of mine to see you reach this great goal. You have reached many of your goals, for which I am justly proud. But then I have always been proud of you.

  When I lost the love of my life I thought that God or fate or the great cosmic roulette wheel was cruel to make me walk through life alone. But time has brought clarity. I wasn’t alone. How grateful I am for the time I have had with you, to see you grow into a man. I have seen you suffer, even as I suffered, and though you never saw it, in dark hours I too have wept for your pain. Son, learn from my mistakes. Don’t hold so tightly to the past that you can’t hold anything more. Believe in love. Believe that love can last forever. In this I have come to believe that your mother was right all along.

  You have completed one journey. I wish you well on the next. And the next. May God watch over you every step of the way.

  Love,

  Dad

  P.S. Please do me this kindness and return this shell to the waters of Key West. It has served its purpose.

  My eyes were wet as I folded the letters back together and returned them to my pocket. Then I examined the shell in my hand. It was a little smaller than my palm, ridged and fanned out perfectly, the outer edge a deep red. I held it for a moment, then, as my father had requested, threw it back into the sea. That was it. Life had come full circle.

  As the sun continued to sink I looked out over the glowing horizon. “I made it, Mickey,” I said. I lifted the chain from around my neck, the one with McKale’s wedding ring, and held the ring in my hand. “I did it.”

  As I looked at the ring I realized just how much I had changed. I remembered holding that ring my fourth night on the road, huddled in the small shack on the east slope of Stevens Pass, as the hail beat down around me. I had clutched the ring as I cried out to McKale, “Why did you make me promise to live?” Now, as I looked at the ring, I understood why.

  “I did what you asked, sweetheart. I lived.” A strong breeze brushed by.

  Perhaps even more important than understanding why, I now understood how. The same way I had walked—one step at a time. My walk had never been about moving on, or moving past my love. I would never be past her. It was about moving forward—even if it were just one step at a time. If I could walk across an entire country, I could do that. My father was right. I had completed only the first of many journeys. Perhaps an even greater journey now awaited me.

  “Mickey, if you’re here, I want you to know that I love you more than anyone in this world and always will. I will hope that we can be together again. But I won’t die in the meantime. There is still life to be lived.”

  A wave splashed up my shins. I looked down as the water peaked, then receded from the shore. I took a deep breath, then walked back to my pack and sat down in the sand. I took a handful of sand and put it in my pocket for Ally the waitress at the 59er Diner. Then I reached into my pack and took out my journal and began to write.

  I made it to Key West. I have walked as far as I could. I have reached the end of my journey only to realize that it is just the beginning.

  As I looked over the paper a soft voice behind me said, “I knew you would make it.”

  I turned around. Falene was standing behind me. A breeze blew her long dark hair, and she pulled a strand back from he
r face. For a moment we just stared at each other.

  “I never doubted you would make it,” she said.

  I looked at her in disbelief. “Falene . . .” Her gaze was locked on me as I set down my journal and stood. “What are you doing here?”

  “Where else should I be?”

  I looked at her for a moment, and then I glanced back over at Nicole, suddenly understanding the phone calls she’d been taking. She looked at me and smiled. I turned back to Falene, and for a moment neither of us spoke. Then I asked, “Are you married?”

  She slowly shook her head. “No.”

  “You said you were getting married.”

  “I also told you that love wasn’t everything.” She took a step forward, looking more deeply into my eyes. “After you dropped me off at the hotel I cried all night. As soon as I got back to New York I called off the wedding.” She nervously looked at me. “I’ve loved you for so long, I never thought life would give me a chance to be with you. And when it did, I got scared. I didn’t feel worthy of happiness.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “Am I too late?”

  I just looked at her for a moment, then said, “No. You’re just in time.” Then, for the first time ever, we kissed. And we kissed. After we parted I took her hand. “Come on,” I said.

  A broad smile crossed her face. “Where are we going?”

  I smiled. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  EPILOGUE

  Dear fellow sojourner,

  It’s been more than a year since I last wrote. It’s March 4 (no need to read anything into that) and I’m here in the living room of my father’s home in California. The weather is beautiful. It’s almost always beautiful in Southern California. I suppose that’s why so many people live here.

  A lot has happened since Key West. Nicole is happy. Her doctor is smitten. He proposed to her a few weeks ago on Valentine’s Day, but she’s in no hurry to get married, which, of course, only makes him more eager. I think they’re a good match. It makes me happy to see Nicole with the love she deserves. There’s a side benefit to the doctor (besides free house calls). If they marry, they’ll likely move to Pasadena.

  Kailamai is doing well. She still hopes to get into law school and to someday be a judge. Or a stand-up comedian. Either way the world will be a better place.

  In January I opened an advertising agency here in Pasadena—a new agency with an old name: MADGIC. My first client was the car dealership my father did accounting for. My second was Wathen Development, the company I was pitching the day I learned of McKale’s accident.

  Things are going well, and I already have as much work as I can handle. I doubt I’ll ever move back to Seattle, even though I have a few clients from there.

  Falene is here with me in Pasadena. After she broke off the wedding, the agency dropped her contract. It’s one of the best things that has ever happened to her. She’s been working with me at the agency and volunteers weekends at a drug rehabilitation clinic for teenagers. I think she’s finally starting to believe that she’s more than just the girl behind the bleachers.

  On New Year’s Day, Falene and I went to the arboretum and sat on the same bench we had the night of my father’s viewing. I asked her to marry me. She smiled and said, “Why do you think I’ve been following you around all this time?”

  We plan to get married May 3. Someplace indoors. Falene asked if we could honeymoon in Key West. I told her I’ve been there.

  I think about McKale every day. I suppose that the hole never really goes away, but I’ve learned that you can fill it with things. Good things. My memories of her are no longer just a source of pain. They are also a fountain of gratitude for the time and love we shared. I still have my days, but I don’t think it would be right if I didn’t.

  I sometimes think about those angels I met along my walk: Leszek, the Holocaust survivor in Mitchell, South Dakota, who lifted me from the road and taught me how to forgive; Paige, the young woman who rescued me from a tornado outside Jackson City, Missouri; and Analise, the lovely, lonely woman I stayed with in Sidney, Iowa. As I promised, I sent an envelope filled with sand from Key West to Ally, the wise waitress from the 59er Diner near Leavenworth, Washington, and I’ve spoken twice with McKale’s mother, Pamela, who followed me all the way from Custer, South Dakota, to Wall Drug. I am grateful for each of them and the role they played in my journey.

  Every now and then people ask me about my walk. They seem surprised or amazed by it, not seeing that it’s really no different than what they do every day. Whether they realize it or not, we are all on a walk. And, like me on my journey, none of us know what experiences we’ll face or who we’ll meet along our road. The best we can do is set our hearts on a mark in the distance and try to make it. For some the road will seem long, while, for others, it will end all too soon. There will be days of clear skies and pleasant walking, and there will be long, bitter stretches trudged through storms. But either way we must walk. It’s what we were made for.

  I have fulfilled my final promise to McKale. I am living. But the journey seems different to me now. I suppose that the trail never changes as much as the traveler.

  When we are young, the road seems so sure and firm. We tell ourselves that we have tomorrow—then we waste our todays in fear of what might be and regret of what wasn’t. And we miss the truth that the road is an illusion, and that there are no guarantees of a new day—there never have been, there never will be.

  In the end, it is not by knowledge that we make our journeys but by hope and faith: hope that our walk will be worthy of our steps and faith that we are going somewhere. And only when we come to the end of our journeys do we truly understand that every step of the way we were walking on water.

  A Letter from the Author

  I’m sometimes asked how I came up with the idea for The Walk series. The simple answer is, I was walking. The better answer is that I was walking the four-mile dirt road to my ranch near Zion National Park when the idea came to me to write a story about a man walking across America. The mental conversation that followed went something like this:

  Why did the man cross America?

  I don’t know.

  Does he really need a reason?

  I’ve always wanted to walk across America.

  Then why don’t you?

  Because I’m married, I have a family, a home, a job. I’m tied down to responsibilities.

  What if you lost all that?

  That’s when the potential of the series hit me: if you take away everything a man lives for, then what does he live for? That was a question worth writing about.

  As I sat down to write this story, I soon realized it could not happen from my den; I would have to make the journey myself. I asked my eldest daughter and writing assistant, Jenna, if she would make the trip with me, and she happily agreed. I hadn’t realized at the time what a blessing it would be to drive from coast to coast with my daughter.

  Driving more than three thousand miles across America was a remarkable adventure. In Yellowstone we were trapped in a herd of buffalo. In Missouri we were forced to take shelter from a tornado. We stopped in the hometowns of people who have changed the world. We walked through fields of potatoes, corn, and cotton, hiked through canyons and swamps, and even held alligators. We climbed lighthouses and walked through cemeteries at night. We took notes in hospitals and met scores of people who shared with us their life stories. One of our most interesting interviews was with Israel, a hitchhiker we picked up outside Hannibal, Missouri, who shared his experience of fourteen years on the road and taught us the difference between tramps, hobos, and mountain men.

  But all journeys must come to an end. After five years of writing and researching The Walk, the emotions that crossed my heart when I reached the Key West sign were a powerful mix of accomplishment, finality, and nostalgia. I was grateful that I had made the choices that led me to the end of this road—literally as well as figuratively.

  It’s difficult for me to completely fathom how mu
ch this series has meant to many of my readers. Ultimately, The Walk is about hope, and on multiple occasions I’ve heard how the series has interrupted someone’s plan to commit suicide. I’ve seen tough old men, war veterans, cry as they told me how the series had given them hope to carry on after losing their sweethearts.

  And we’ve had dozens of people call from their deathbeds wanting to know how the series ends before they die.

  To all those reading this series, whatever city or country you’re in, thank you for joining me on this sojourn and search for meaning and hope in a vast, mysterious world. I hope you have enjoyed the read. But even more, I hope it has brought some illumination to help you on your journey along the difficult and unsure paths of life that each of us must walk.

  Sincerely,

  Richard Paul Evans

  Simon & Schuster

  Reading Group Guide

  Walking on Water

  by Richard Paul Evans

  Introduction

  Richard Paul Evans’s fifth and final novel about Alan Christoffersen and his epic cross-country adventure picks up directly after the dramatic events of A Step of Faith. Following the death of his beloved wife and loss of the advertising business he founded, Alan sets out on foot, planning to walk from Seattle to Key West while he attempts to comprehend what has happened to his once idyllic life. Now his journey is nearly complete, despite the numerous obstacles he has faced along the way. Or is it? A life-and-death family matter prompts Alan to take a detour to his childhood home in California. Once there, Alan uncovers shocking secrets about his family’s history, and must gather all his strength and newfound knowledge to finally face the truth about himself.

  Topics & Questions for Discussion