They Almost Always Come Home

by Cynthia Ruchti

  to drink and listen to the story. But what I really want is Greg’s embrace. I want to snuggle into his chest and feel the beat of his heart reminding me of the pace at which mine should pulse.

  And I don’t want to warm my blue lips on hot cocoa, but

  on his. How long has it been since a thought like that crossed my mind?

  What will I do if we don’t find him? What if we find him

  but his lips are forever blue?

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  A sleeping bag makes a pretty decent shawl when you need to warm up fast. The current cold front may be good for dis- couraging mosquitoes and black flies, but my teeth chatter so much I’m afraid I’ll crack a crown.

  We’re Scrooge-frugal with our pirated kindling but manage to start a fire. Jen scrambles for more dry wood. It’s rare to find a log too large for a campfire up here. Most of the fallen limbs or downed trees are thin enough to catch fire quickly. The trick today is finding something that escaped the rain under an umbrella of other fallen logs or thick undergrowth.

  I check on Frank. That’s one thing I can do while my blood thaws. He’s awake, complaining of a headache. Big surprise, the poor guy. I find a spare gallon-sized plastic zip bag in the food pack and lay it near his head. Seems to me concussions and vomiting go together, if I remember from the boys’ short- lived football experiences.

  My boys. I may have let them go too soon. I may have forced open the bud of their independence. Why was it so important to me to make sure they didn’t need me? Did I fear letting them down if they depended on me, like I let down Lacey? People

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  get paid to figure out things like that. I probably should have paid someone to tell me.

  It’s not that I resent their aliveness. I don’t want my daugh-

  ter back in place of my sons. A family can still be a family if it’s missing one of its key members, can’t it? The sparkling member. The one who helped balance all the male-dominated décor and activities and sports babble. The one who had me by the heart.

  “Jen?”

  “It’s me, Frank.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “Do you need something?”

  “Pit stop.”

  “Ah.”

  I can’t imagine successfully helping him into the woods in

  his current state of weakness. We just found another use for the “air sickness” bag.

  ********

  “Do you think we should call Brent to send help?” Jen’s

  voice holds a thread of uncertainty atypical for her.

  “I haven’t earned a reputation for wisdom the last few years,

  but I think we should see how the night goes. Frank’s tough. If you ask for the tour, he’ll show you scars from any number of wars. He may bounce back by morning.”

  “Do you think so? Deep in your heart?”

  I don’t dare dig that deeply right now. But I tell her, “What

  can it hurt to wait until morning? Unless Frank takes a turn for the worse. I think he’s a little more with it already, don’t you? He was able to eat a little at supper. Great job with the dehydrated chili, by the way.”

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  “The fresh air’s made you delirious. It tasted like cardboard soaked in tomato sauce.”

  “With a hint of cilantro,” I add.

  “When we get home,” she says, “I’m going to hug my spices and kiss my microwave.”

  When we get home. How many of us will make the return trip? Just the three of us? Will I have something more than kitchen appliances to hug?

  ********

  I should be sleeping. No matter how you look at it, tomor- row promises to be a rough one. But I’m mesmerized by the dance of flames in the fire and stars overhead. This wilder- ness is a civilization vacuum. Suck all the people, all the commotion, all the busyness out of a place, and all you have is the pure Presence. All the hindrances retreat like grim-faced armed guards who once lined the entrance to the throne but now step back to allow me access to the King I’ve ignored too long. A King whose voice called through the crowd and I missed it.

  This is it. This is why you came, isn’t it, Greg? Because of the vacuum. The wilderness drew you because of its absence of people like me demanding things of you that you couldn’t deliver. You sat on nights like this and saw the heavens opened to you, didn’t you? You walked the surface of the water to the Jesus waiting for you to come to Him.

  I always thought the light dancing in your eyes when you returned from these trips was due to the fish stories you collected and the vacation from the daily routine of your job. Now I know it was more likely a reflection of the Light with whom you came in contact while sitting here with nothing in the way.

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  “Libby?”

  Jen has volunteered to camp out in the Tent of Snore tonight

  so she can listen for changes in Frank. I’ll be alone in the sec- ond tent.

  The call comes with a hand on my shoulder this time.

  “Libby? You okay?”

  “Listen.”

  “What?” She plants herself on a log that resembles an

  Adirondack chair if you squint and don’t think about it too hard.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “I don’t hear anything other than your father-in-law.”

  “I’ve been sitting here waiting for the Lord to tell me every-

  thing’s going to be all right.”

  “Oh, hon.”

  “No, you’re right. We don’t have any guarantees. This could

  all end very poorly by our way of thinking.” “And if it does?”

  I look out across the water and above the treetops on the far

  shore to the place of the moon’s crooked grin.

  “Since the beginning of time, there has never been a night

  that has not been followed by a dawn.”

  “Some days are birthed in gray clouds.” She’s baiting me, I

  know. She’s the optimistic one.

  “Trace back through history and find me a gap, an empty

  space in the records, a day when dawn refused to come.”

  “And you’re okay with it if the sun doesn’t shine all day and

  suddenly it’s night again?”

  “No, not okay. But more confident than before that the sun

  isn’t gone forever just because it’s hidden from my view.”

  Jen’s eyes reflect starlight, moonlight, firelight, and the light

  of God. “This is huge, Libby.”

  “I know.”

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  A low growl interrupts us. We snap to attention. I don’t know about Jen, but I’m wishing Frank had smuggled fire- arms over the border.

  Another growl . . . with words this time. “You women going to stop talking any time soon so a guy can get some sleep?” He’s back.

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  Two or three days ago, hurry was our goal. We can’t hurry anymore. That scares me, I admit. It’s almost laughable to think we could find Greg alive at this point. Not rational, certainly. And we’ve already blown our hope of getting back within a week if we keep going deeper into the wilderness.

  But we press on, sluggish as bears six weeks into hiberna-

  tion. I wish they were in hibernation. It would save us fussing with that food pack and fighting off the panic of night sounds. Scratching and snapping twigs. Huffs we hope are wind exha- lations. Grunts we attribute to Frank because any other option is unacceptable.

  We haven’t seen any real evidence of bears other than

  their fertilizer. But the danger hovers like stink on a skunk. Jen’s more an animal person, but she likes them smaller than she is.

  I’m cooking breakfast. The chill air keeps our food so close

  to refrigeration temperatures that I’m not nervous about fry- in
g up the slab bacon we haven’t used yet. The powdered eggs Frank brought hold no appeal. So it’s pancakes again. We wouldn’t take time to cook a hot breakfast, but we have to carb-load, as the marathoners would say. We have vast

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  stretches of water to cover today, if Frank’s energy holds out. We’ll need our strength.

  The pancakes are thinner than Frank’s version but far from pretty. I pray we’re not in this wilderness long enough to learn how to regulate the cookstove.

  “Does he look all right to you?” Jen stage-whispers as I flip the last pancake onto her plate.

  I eye him for the dozenth time since he emerged from the tent an hour ago. “Seems a lot more steady on his feet.” “I hope we’re doing the right thing by moving on.” “Me too.”

  “Me, three.” He’s sneaky, that man.

  I put my hands on my hips, grandmalike, flicking stray pancake crumbs onto the ground as I do.

  “I’ll be fine, you old mother hens,” he says. “Look. See? I can bend my leg. I know who the president is. What year it is. And my mother’s maiden name: Finkelmasterson. Bet she’s glad she married a Holden.”

  Something brushes against my pant leg. I hurdle over logs and rocks in my effort to distance myself from whatever it is before my eyes can focus on the beast.

  “Chipmunk,” Jen calls across the miles. “You should see him. He’s so cute.”

  Pancake crumbs. That’s what lured him. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t startled me.

  I remember thinking that same thing on an ocean-deep level after the coroner told us Lacey was gone. It startled the life out of us. We didn’t have time to prepare—no time to say good-bye.

  Initially, stupidly, I thought how much better we could have coped if we’d just known our time with her was short. Who expects to lose a twelve-year-old daughter?

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  If I’d known what was coming, I would have put off getting

  a part-time job until she was away at college or something. If I hadn’t been working that day, I would have been home. And so would she.

  “Libby!” Jen calls. “It’s safe. You can come back. He won’t

  hurt you.”

  Frank’s laughter carries to where my panic took me. That’s

  a good sign, but I’d better rejoin them before his chuckles turn to spasms.

  Jen feeds the furry offender bits of pancake she tosses from

  her plate as if feeding pigeons or squirrels at the park.

  The sun is too high in the sky by the time we have the

  camp dismantled and the canoes loaded. Jen offers to paddle Frank’s canoe and allow him the so-called benefit of my pad- dling assistance. He turns her down, insisting that if we slow our pace a tad, he’ll manage. I’m guessing the cold wave is over, judging from the sweat puddling in my bra.

  I’m beginning to think Frank’s enlarged prostate is a gift

  from God. We know he’ll have to stop frequently for breaks. Maybe we can talk him into stretching the break times to include cat naps.

  According to Frank, we’re tracing the most likely path Greg

  took. We’re all conscious, though, that so much of what Greg told any of us ahead of time doesn’t jibe with the evidence. How could he have left home without his fishing equipment? What was on his mind?

  Right now, the only confirmation we have is a broken pad-

  dle and a handful of sunflower seeds that may or may not have been his. He was here—somewhere in this vast expanse of hiding places.

  Jen hums something familiar.

  “What is that?”

  “Me.”

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  “I mean, what song?”

  “An oldie. ‘Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah.’ Seems appropriate.”

  It occurs to me that I miss music more than my microwave. I misplaced music three years ago, right after the funeral. Jen’s moved onto another song—a worship song. I recog- nize it from church and entertain a moment of shame that it’s lived there but not in my heart. Her effortless soprano voice floats skyward. I hum an alto harmony part I didn’t know was in me. By the second verse, I’m using words too. I can’t imag- ine any other kind of music that would fit this setting.

  The sun’s reflection on the water is strong today. Less than twenty feet ahead of us, Frank lays his paddle across his lap, removes his glare-blocking sunglasses, and wipes a fleck of dust or something out of his eye.

  Dust.

  I can’t think about Frank’s spiritual needs right now. Searching for Greg is a consuming task. Survival consumes us.

  Lord, can it wait until we’re back on terra firma? No.

  Of course not. I let Jen’s voice solo for a while and turn my attention to praying for the man with his back to us and to Him.

  ********

  Another portage. Not a good day for it, but it’s the only link from this lake to the next lake in the chain. The droop of Frank’s shoulders tells us he’s fading. Will he take our sug- gestion that he let the two of us women bear the brunt of the effort for this portage?

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  “Jen,” I begin after we’ve straightened our bent knees and

  stomped out the prickles in our sleeping feet, “you know what I’d like to try sometime?”

  “What’s that?” The innocence in her voice tells me she’s

  unaware of the plot hatching in my mind.

  “Don’t you think you and I could haul a canoe across a por-

  tage? We’re stronger now than a few days ago.”

  “Speak for yourself, lady.” She rubs a spot on her left shoul-

  der, but at the glare I shoot her way she changes her tune. “Stronger. That’s right. Regular Amazon women. I’m consider- ing signing us up for The Amazing Race next season.”

  “If you take one end and I take the other, can’t we carry a

  canoe down the path?”

  “I’d think so. Yes.”

  “And we could pile a few things inside. Just a few. Nothing

  too heavy.”

  Frank’s straddling the end of his canoe. He’s quiet. But he’s

  not objecting.

  “Frank, what do you think? Could we try?” Jen asks.

  “It would make us feel as if we’d accomplished something.”

  Okay, I may have taken it a little too far.

  “Makes no nevermind to me if you women want to do it the

  hard way.”

  He rubs the muscles on either side of the laceration on his

  shin. Jen checks it as often as he’ll let her.

  “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll get myself a little snack before

  I join you on the trail.”

  “That’s a good idea, Frank. Then you won’t be pushing us

  faster than we can hoof it,” Jen offers.

  Bless her.

  I’ve carried infant seats with twelve-pound babies. I’ve

  lugged a warehouse full of grocery bags over the years, includ- ing multiple two-liter bottles of ginger ale and five-quart pails

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  of ice cream for hungry teens. I move my own furniture, inch- by-inch, so I don’t have to answer Greg’s questions about why I’m rearranging again.

  But hauling a partially loaded canoe through the woods and over roots and rocks is a new experience.

  Jen’s a trooper. I ask her if we can rest a minute every so often. My hand is cramped from gripping the flat part of the canoe that forms a triangle and a supposed handle. Jen’s in back, so I’m not sure what she’s found to grip. It occurs to me that we probably should have upped the insurance on Brent’s brand new canoe before tackling this assignment. “Slow down a little, will you, Libby?”

  “Oh, thank you!”

  “This was the right thi
ng to do, wasn’t it?”

  “Absolutely,” I say, swinging my free arm for balance on the irregular terrain.

  “Save Frank’s strength.”

  “Right.”

  “Oh, this is good news.”

  “What?”

  “Look up.”

  “Jen, I can barely stand the way it is.”

  “Stop then and look up.”

  We grind to a clumsy halt, lower the canoe to the ground, stretch what isn’t broken, and turn our faces toward the sky. Black fog in silhouette against the blue? “What is that? A rain cloud?” I ask.

  “That’s no cloud, Libby. It’s swarms of insects. The warmth brought back the flying things. Black flies, maybe. Could be mosquitoes.”

  “Is it a state convention or something?” “Provincial.”

  “What?”

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  “Canadian, dear. A provincial convention.”

  I reach for my end of the canoe again. “Let’s get this over

  with and get back out onto the water.”

  Hustling proves counterproductive. I scrape my flailing

  arm on rough tree bark. My shirt sleeve catches on a stub of a branch. And, of course, the jolt makes me drop my end of the canoe.

  “Oh, no! I’m so sorry.”

  “Are you hurt?” Jen asks.

  “Is the canoe okay?” I drop to my knees and feel the skin of

  the canoe for punctures or dents, like a vet might run his hand over a lame horse’s sore muscles. “Can you lift it up a little?”

  She’s already on the case, raising the front end—my

  responsibility—tentatively.

  As smooth as ironed underwear, which I will never do—

  iron underwear. “I think we’re okay.”

  “Made of good stuff,” Jen suggests.

  “Thank You, Lord. I don’t think I could bear one more—”

  My breath is stolen.

  “One more what? Disaster? Yes, I think we’ve had our fill

  for a while. I’d knock on wood, which there’s plenty of, but I’d rather—Libby? What is it?”

  The sight before me sends me into something bordering on

  arrhythmia. “I had to drop the canoe.” My voice is hollow. It spooks even me.

  “Well, sure. I understand. Your shirt caught on the—”

  “I had to drop it here,” I tell Jen. “In this spot.” I’m not

  moving from my crouch, so Jen gently lowers the front of the canoe.