They Almost Always Come Home (31 page)

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CYNTHIA RUCHTI

Greg opened his eyes. His rank sleeping bag smelled of

sweat and smoke and dampness, not the sun. He pushed him- self to a sitting position. Snap. Snap. Snap.

He crawled over to the tent door and felt around its open-

ing. The tent flap caught the wind again and skirted away from his grasp as soon as he snagged it. Like a tightrope walker inching his way along the high wire, Greg moved his hands along the nylon until he caught the loose edge again.

No lawn mowing today. No lemonade. No sheets on the

line. No smiles on Libby’s face.

He growled at the frustration of not knowing if he’d slept an

hour or a day. Not that it mattered.

The tent walls buckled and puffed, as if trying to breathe.

“I know how you feel.”

He left the flap open and lay back down on his anything-

but-crisp-and-sweet-smelling nest.

“Wind that stiff—” he said, “I pity anyone out on open

water.”

He tried to make a snow angel on top of his sleeping bag,

but the effort wore him out.

What was wrong with him? The profound weakness. He

shouldn’t actually starve to death for weeks yet. Wasn’t it true that a person could live without food for a month or more, as long as he had water?

Without food. Strange thought for a guy in the grocery

business.

He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the spiral

notebook and pen. On the last page with a bent corner, he wrote:

“Man does not live by bread alone.”—words of Jesus.

Then he slid his hand down the page the equivalent of

several lines and wrote:

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They Almost Always Come Home

“Man does not live by bread at all.”—words of Greg Holden.

Words. Of Greg Holden. Someone should find his words after . . . an explanation of why he died here. Why he came. He reached across the darkness and flipped to a fresh page. His pen hovered over the paper. He wished he could remem- ber if it was blue ink or black. Blue seemed more “him,” more legitimately his own thoughts.

As he pressed the pen into service, it occurred to him that what he was about to write would last far longer than he would, barring divine intervention.

To the ones I love—Libby, Zack, Alex, Dad and

to the One who showed me how little I knew about

love . . .

He stopped writing when the only unused paper was the inside of the back cover. Then he composed an addendum and filled the cover too.

I couldn’t have loved you more, although I could

have loved you better. I hope you’ll forgive me for

that. I pray God has.

Greg closed the notebook, tucked it into his breast pocket, laid his hand over it and his heart, and prayed himself to sleep.

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A
s we walk toward an unknown future that will make me an official widow when we cross the finish line, I tweak the funeral plans I started the day Greg failed to come home.

We’re moving forward as if there’s hope. And I do see

glimpses of it. Not hope we’ll find Greg alive. That boat—ca- noe—sailed long ago. But hope that I’ll survive.

My robotic steps break through the underbrush not tramped

down or pushed aside by Jen or Frank. There are four of us on this faux trail. The One who walks beside me says,
A shekel for
your thoughts.
God’s using Frank’s sense of humor?

Lord, I thought I needed my daughter spared in order to fully

trust You,
I tell Him.
It didn’t happen.

I hold back a sapling and duck to miss another as I press

through.
I thought I could believe You were good and righteous if
you spared Jen further pain.

Stumbling over an exposed root, I flail then regain my bal-

ance.
I thought finding Greg alive and well and wanting me would
be the key to fixing my faltering faith.

Jen turns back as if reading my prayers. That’s not pos-

sible, is it? Her eyebrows lift like those of a sympathetic cocker

41

LIBBY

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They Almost Always Come Home

spaniel. I return the look, then nod an “I’m okay. Let’s keep going.”

Lord, I don’t need my daughter, or my friend, or even my hus-
band as much as I need Your mercy.

The words pull the lining out of my stomach. All the bro- ken pieces of my life congeal at the base of my throat. I double over. And over.

When I straighten, I’m surprised to see that Frank and Jen haven’t pulled away from me. They stand—stooped—no more than a dozen yards ahead.

Jen calls back, “Libby? We need you, hon.”

I jog to where Frank crouches and Jen hovers with her arm around his shoulders. “What’s wrong? Frank?” “I can’t go any farther.”

Jen and I lock eyes. Heart attack? Stroke? Have we pushed him too hard after his head injuries?

I bend to Frank’s eye level and grasp his large hands in mine. “Tell us where the pain is.”

He wrenches one hand free and presses it against his chest. “Here.”

Oh, Lord God! Now what do we do?

“It’s . . . in here,” he says, tapping his breastbone. “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t handle stumbling over my boy’s body.” Jen rubs her hand across his back. “We don’t know for sure that Greg’s dead.”

He raises his head, not to her, but to the skies. “Yes, we do. We all know it. He’s a bright boy. He had to have been badly hurt not to try to get word to us, not to
try
. . .”

He doesn’t have to mention that we aren’t even following a trail. We’re crashing through untouched forest. He doesn’t have to point out that we’re flailing wildly in our search with even less hope than when we thought it was utterly hopeless.

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Greg said it was always Pauline who buried the family pets

when they expired. Frank couldn’t do it. He refused to stand in the family receiving line at Lacey’s funeral. Said he had to “walk off a charley horse.” Can a heart muscle get a charley horse?

Greg and I didn’t risk having pets. But I know what death

looks like. If I don’t find it, it will find me. So I have to go on.

“Will you stay here with him, Jen, while I go on a little

longer?”

“That’s crazy. It’s going to be dark soon.” Jen looks from

Frank to me as if struggling to keep both tightrope walkers from falling off the edge of the earth.

“Can I see the map?” I stretch my hand toward Frank, palm

up. The other hand I raise—palm up—over my head, asking God to drop fresh wisdom into it.

Frank sighs. “I’ll come.”

“No.” My voice holds power and gentleness in what I hope

is Jesuslike balance. “No, I think I’m supposed to go on alone from here.”

Jen grabs the hand waiting for a map. “You can’t do this.”

“Why? Because it’s hard? Because we don’t know the out-

come? Because how this turns out might be the opposite of what we think we need?”

“Those are some good reasons right there,” Jen says, with-

drawing her hand.

I reach to grab it back. “I don’t want you to go through what’s

waiting for you back home, Jen. Because it’s hard. Because we don’t know the outcome. Because when God answers our prayers, we may not like His choices. But you’re going to walk through it anyway, aren’t you?”

Jen’s eyes glisten. The earth’s rotation seems to hiccup, then

catch again and turn as it has since God’s Hand started the first spin. “How long will you be gone?”

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“How long will it take us to find our way back out of here?” Frank asks with an instructor’s tone. “Too long. We should have started back an hour ago.”

I press my hand an inch closer toward him. “The map, Frank?”

He’s a resistant dad, handing the keys to the good car to his freshly licensed teenager. I take the map reverently, under- standing what it cost him to let me see it. The faint pencil markings swim before my eyes. “Where are we now, as near as you can guess?”

Frank stands and leans toward me. “Wish I knew.”

Jen levels her gaze at him. “What exactly does that mean? We’re not lost.”

“No. Not lost,” Frank says, dropping his chin. “I just don’t know where we are. Exactly. But if we leave now, we can retrace our steps. They’re the only footprints out here, you might have noticed.”

We’ve all noticed.

I press trembling fingers to my lips and look beyond Frank and Jen, deeper into the friendless woods. I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this—a decision to stop searching. The sands of time drained long ago. Frank needs rest. Jen needs radiation. Brent needs more time with his wife. Zack and Alex need reassur- ance that life will go on.

And I need mercy.

Through the shadows, a flash of light.

“Did you see that?” I breathe.

“See what?” Jen asks a fraction of a second before Frank does.

“I saw a light. There.”

The others turn their line of sight to the trajectory I indicate.

“I don’t see anything,” Frank says.

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CYNTHIA RUCHTI

“Sorry, Libby. Me either. What kind of light?”

“Just a little flash of something.”

Frank turns his eyes and emotions back onto our makeshift

trail to leave this place of pain. “Probably the sunset send- ing out a caution warning through the trees. It’s time to go, Libby.”

“I have to agree this time,” Jen says. “I’m so sorry. We need

to go home.”

I stare into the approaching darkness. “God, please. Either

take away this urgency to keep pursuing this or show me the light again.”

Nothing.

I breathe out all hope and drink in two lungsful of fresh

air that I pray will bring meaning to a life devoid of Greg’s bedrock love.

Still nothing.

I begin to take the first step to reverse course and follow

Frank and Jen. But there. A mere pinpoint of light. Logic says it is a stray ray of a dying sun, as I’ve been told. My heart tells me different.

“Fifteen minutes. Or a half hour. Give me half an hour,

okay?”

Without waiting for an argument, I quickly increase the

distance between myself and the others.

Frank growls something foul, but doesn’t try to stop me.

Not that he could.

As I tear through the untamed woods, I keep my eyes on

the direction from which I last saw the flash. Like headlights on a sunny day, the light seems faint at best. Weak. But real. And annoyingly intermittent.

As I pursue the phantom, I steel my heart for the revela-

tion that what I saw originated from a piece of tinfoil long ago abandoned by a camper. Or a shard of mirror dropped by a

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They Almost Always Come Home

novice canoeist who didn’t realize a mirror is the last thing she would want after a few days in the wilderness.

I press ahead another few steps, ready for the disappoint- ment but compelled nonetheless.

The light—when it appeared—was low to the ground. Not knowing its source, it startles me to break through a tangle of waist-high brush and see it there before me on the forest floor.

A pocket-sized flashlight, stuck in the “on” position. Surviving on what are probably its last few seconds of battery power. I bend to pick it up. The light dies in my hand.

As weak as its light was, how could I have seen it from the point where I left Jen and Frank?

A dying flashlight.

In the “on” position.

Someone was here. I don’t know the life expectancy of the newer kinds of batteries, but I find it remarkable that I saw the light at all.

“Greg? Greg Holden! Is anyone there?”

I scan the section of woods where I now stand. Left to right and back again, like a metal detector might sweep a portion of park lawn. Where? Who? Why is an abandoned flashlight lying in a remote, uninhabited spot? And working?

A sudden breeze lifts the branches of the trees as if pull- ing back a curtain, revealing an opening in the thick under- growth. Curiosity draws me forward to get a better view of a jarring pattern. Downed logs lined up end to end. This smacks of human intervention. I lift my eyes and catch sight of a tent twenty yards in front of me.

No movement. No sign of life. The fabric has a smoky cast, as if someone once lit a fire inside.

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It has to be Greg’s tent, doesn’t it? I step closer, overdosing

on adrenaline.
God help me with this. Help me handle it if he’s not
here. Or . . .

As I approach, I survey the campsite area. The logs form an

ankle-high fence around the perimeter. This isn’t the work of a sane man. Not Greg. Who would build a fence only four inches high? Or tackle a landscaping project here?

I’m in over my head. A possibility we hadn’t considered is

a madman serial killer camped in the woods, stalking people like Greg—cereal purchasers. That is
so
not funny.

I should wait for Jen and Frank. But I won’t.

“Greg?” I call out softly, then more insistently. “Greg?”

Nothing.

A couple of strides from the tent door, I call out again,

“Greg?”

“Libby?”

I stop and fall to my knees where I stand. How far has

imagination taken me this time? I thought I heard his voice. “Libby?”

An unseen hand unzips the tent flap from the inside.

“Greg? Oh, dear God! Greg, what happened to you?”

I watch him ease his body through the tent opening, his

movements tortured. Jumping to my feet, I rush forward to meet him as he emerges. What is that expression on his face? He’s turned slightly away from me. Why can’t he look me in the eye? What’s going on?