03 The Long Road Home (11 page)

I couldn't think of a thing to say.  The pictures he painted frightened me more than what I had left behind.   

"What about your sisters?" he asked finally.  "They might decide to run away, too.  After all, the brother they love so much did it, so that must make it all right."

I hated the thought of Patricia and Susan doing what I had done.

"You know what?" he said after a while.  "You sound like a rich, spoiled kid to me.  In fact, you sound like your father.  You say he never thinks of anything but what he wants.  Well, you're doing exactly the same thing by running away.  Thinking only of yourself."

The shock of being compared to my father frightened me enough to ask the trucker what I should do.

"You need two things to turn your dream into a reality, kid.  Education and money is your passport to the freedom you want.  Go home, finish school, and equip yourself with the ability to earn a living.  The day you start working, is the day you'll begin to have the power to change your dream into reality." 

I sat there thinking about it, and he said.  "There are many patterns to life.  Most of us tend to follow the ones our parents set, but there are others as well.  It takes courage and determination to choose a different pattern to the one you've known and stick to it, but it can be done."

When he finished talking, he asked me what my decision was.  I told him I had decided to go home.  He shook hands with me and said, "When times get tough, think of your dream.  Dreams feed the soul and keep one going." 

He left me within a mile of my home, and I asked him what his name was.  "Bedouin," he said, "I've been a rolling stone all my life, and I've never gathered any moss.  I left school at twelve to go to work to support my mother and my younger brothers and sisters.  Look where I am now.  One old truck that breaks down every hundred miles, barely enough money to keep me fed and my truck repaired.  Is that how you want to end up?  It's your choice, boy.  You could spend your entire life living hand to mouth like me or you could make it big, prove something to yourself.  All I'm saying is use what you've got to get you where you want to go.  Take the good, ignore the bad.  It isn't easy, but neither is the rest of life."

Matt stopped, and Margaret prompted softly, "Go on." 

"For years no one at home knew I had tried to run away.  I turned sixteen and got a job that summer working at a truck stop.  My father hit the roof when he found out I had no intention of working in his real estate empire, but all his hollering couldn't make me change my mind.  At eighteen, I left home to go to college, and got a part time job as a mechanic at a truck stop near the University.  Later, I was promoted to driver.  Bedouin's words proved right.  It took college and five years of working in a company to get enough money together for my first truck."

Margaret cleared her throat.  "That's why you named your company after him."

"Bedouin did more for me in that one night, than my father ever had.  He steered me right."

"Did you ever meet him again?"

Matt nodded again.  "When I began driving, I asked other truckers about him.  One day he called me at the truck stop where I worked, said he'd retired and had a little place by Lake Michigan.  I told him what I was doing, how I owed him for what he had done for me.  He brushed my thanks away, said I'd always had the potential.  I'd just needed to be reminded of it.  We talked once a month after that.  He died in his sleep a year after I started Bedouin Trucking, but I'm glad he knew that I named my company after him."

A comfortable silence wrapped them while outside the shadows deepened.

"Would you like some coffee?"  Margaret asked after a while, and Matt nodded. 

As Margaret got two mugs out and waited for the water in the kettle to boil, she thought of what Matt had told her about his early life.  Bedouin had had more insight into human life than some psychiatrists had. 

Matt was standing by the television, glancing through the file she had brought with her, when Margaret carried the coffee in.

"You planned to work tonight?" he asked.

"I just wanted to update the file I've kept since I've started working at the Edward Institute."

"This girl, Vicky Barrows.  What's the matter with her?"

Margaret came up beside him and looked at the picture of the blonde, smiling twelve year old and said, “Vicky has cerebral palsy.  She was found abandoned in an old barn, a year ago.  Dr. Edwards discovered no one had ever tried to communicate with her.  At the Institute, she simply lay in bed and stared at the ceiling all day.  Dr. Edwards was convinced Vicki could understand what was being said to her but it had simply become a habit not to respond.  I started reading to her, and, within a week, Vicki would turn her head and watch the door, waiting for my footsteps each morning.  Once she began to react to the sound of my voice and my presence, teaching her became a delight."

"Why is this Institute the only one of its kind in the country?"  Matt asked.

"Dr. Edwards would like to start another facility, but it isn't easy to find the right person to run them.  His job isn't nine to five...it's around the clock, and there aren't many doctors as dedicated as he is." 

Margaret didn't mention that she had suggested Inchwater as the ideal place for a second facility because land was so cheap here.

"Maybe I can help."

Hot color stained Margaret's cheeks.  "I didn't mean to hint at anything," she said quickly. 

"I know you didn't, Margaret, and I'm not offering money.  I'm just offering to put the Institute in touch with someone who could help Dr. Edwards with the financial expense of a new facility in the west coast."

"Who?" asked Margaret. 

"Patricia, my second sister, has made a career out of organizing fund raisers for charities.  She'll be glad to contact Dr. Edwards and talk to him about the kind of work she does."

"If you'll give me your sister's number," said Margaret, "I'll let Dr. Edwards have it and tell him to contact your sister if the idea interests him.  He's very firm about the fact that you can't open these centers as if they are fast food franchises."

Matt hesitated and then nodded.  "I'll give you one of Trish's business cards.  Her specialty is galas for causes with guests paying five thousand dollars and above a plate for their dinners."

Margaret stared at Matt.  The life he talked of seemed beyond her comprehension.

Matt reached up and touched her nose with a finger.  "Don't try to figure it out.  Trish says she does people in her circle a favor by having these events.  By inducing them to give and then having their donations mentioned by the media, she insists she's building up their self-esteem."

"Dr. Edwards isn't the kind of man to let anyone control him just because they've donated to the cause," Margaret warned.

"The donations are made unconditionally, on Trish's guarantee the funds will be used for the purpose they're intended for."

"It sounds wonderful," Margaret said. 

If everything worked out and if Dr. Edwards chose to build a second facility in Inchwater, she could live at home, keep Aunt Jan company.

See Matt every day?

Margaret swallowed.  "I'll e-mail Dr. Edwards about what we've discussed and see how he feels about it."  

"How was your trip to LA?" asked Margaret, as a vision of Matt in a tuxedo, with a beautiful woman draped on each arm teased her.

"Very busy.  Meetings and work took up so much time I barely managed to get home each night to read my niece her bedtime story."

"You stayed with your sister?" said Margaret as the women her imagination had conjured vanished.

Matt shook his head.  "No.  Just visited.  Susan and Trish have their own places on the nine acres that surround the main house and I use the guest house."

Margaret sensed reluctance in Matt to talk about his life in L.A., and she said quickly.  "Is your niece still insisting on Cinderella ever night?"

Matt smiled.  "She's graduated from Cinderella to
Rumpelstiltskin, which was a bit of a relief."

Margaret considered the different sides she had seen of Matt.  The corporate boss, the teasing companion, the good friend.  She imagined him patiently reading a fairy tale to a three year old.  The thought made emotional inroads into her heart.  The image of Matt the man was taking up more and more room in her thoughts, crowding out that of Matt the trucking magnate. 

They went through her file, and Margaret told him a little about each of the ten children she worked with.

When they came to the last picture, Matt looked at her.  "You love your work, don't you?"

Margaret nodded, as Matt went on, "Just like I love trucking."

Margaret's breath caught in her throat.  Was there a challenge in the statement?  Matt turned to her and said seriously.  "I got delivery of a new rig in L.A.  Would you like to try it out with me tomorrow, Margaret?"

Margaret swallowed, unable to control the fear that surged in her. 

"I'll understand if you feel you can't," Matt said after a moment's silence.

After a few minutes, Margaret shook her head.  "I'll come with you."  Her voice held one part fear, two parts resolve.

It was time to stop running. 

CHAPTER EIGHT

Margaret looked at the heap of clothes on the bed and sighed.  Turning sideways, she looked at her reflection in the mirror.  The camisole top and jeans she had on wasn't right.  None of her other outfits were either.  All fifteen of them.

The tap on her door brought her head around and her breath caught in her throat.  Timmy stood in her doorway, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

"Timmy, come in."

He didn't move from his spot by the door.  "I just wanted to say I'm sorry for flying off the handle last night."

Margaret swallowed.  The olive branch Timmy extended was so frail any attempt to grab it would snap it in two.

"It's all right.  I guess from your point of view I do seem paranoid about what you're doing." 

She wanted to explain so much, most of all her fear of losing him, but she was afraid to antagonize him again.

"Got to go, sis.  Can't be late for work.  See you around." 

"Bye."  There wasn't anything else she could say.  Timmy had vanished already. 

Margaret turned back to the mirror with a sigh.  Even the shade of lipstick she had on looked wrong. 

"So this is where you are," said Aunt Jan, coming into the room a few minutes later.  "I was wondering about the sounds I've been hearing from here in the past hour.  Getting together a collection of clothes for Goodwill, are you?"

"No," said Margaret.  "I'm deciding what to wear."  She burrowed through the heap on her bed for a scarf.

"What's up?"  Interpreting Margaret's look of surprise correctly, Aunt Jan said, "Every time your room looks like the aftermath of an earthquake I know it's because you're in a tizzy about something." 

Margaret paused in her search, "Do I really do this regularly?"

Aunt Jan nodded.  "It was like this for your first date, then for the prom, then the day you left home for college." 

Busy tossing things on the floor, Margaret said, "Do you think this outfit looks too casual?"

"Depends what the occasion is," Aunt Jan said. 

"I'm going for a ride with Matt in one of his trucks."

Still searching for her scarf, Margaret missed the way Aunt Jan's eyebrows shot up. 

"That's nice," Aunt Jan sounded out of breath.  "I have to go now.  I think I hear the telephone."

Scarf in hand, Margaret looked up in surprise as the door shut.  Which telephone had Aunt Jan heard?  The extension by Margaret's bedside was perfectly silent.

Margaret peered into the mirror as she knotted the scarf about her neck.  The dark circles under her eyes testified to the anxiety ridden night she had spent. 

"Wouldn't it have been simpler to tell Matt you didn't want to go with him?"  Margaret's reflection seemed to ask. 

"Well..."  Discarding the scarf, Margaret picked up a light cotton jacket, and headed for the door.  It would have been simpler, but simple wasn't what life was all about.

Margaret watched Matt pull up in front of the Inner Man, her mouth dry.  Wiping her damp palms on the sides of her jeans, she thought I can't do it.  Daddy's truck had been black and white.  This one was blue and silver, the shape of the cab entirely different, but the old familiar fears rose up as she looked at it, rooting her to the spot. 

I'm going to be sick.

She turned away as Matt jumped down from the cab of his truck and came toward the restaurant. 

I have to find Aunt Jan.  She'll tell him I'm ill or something.

The yipping stopped Margaret and made her turn slowly around.  Matt's arms were filled with a bundle of fur, and two beady eyes stared at her from a mop of a face. 

"Where did you find him?"  Margaret asked, looking at the puppy.

"He was wandering around the truck stop, completely lost."

Just like she had been that first day.  "You think someone abandoned him?"

Matt shrugged.  "Could be."

"You could have called the humane society to come pick him up."

"He seemed so little," Matt said looking slightly embarrassed.  As if on cue the puppy yowled piteously, and Matt patted his head.

"I think he's starving."  Margaret reached for a plastic bowl, and Ben, the counter boy, quickly handed her a pitcher of milk.  Matt set the puppy on the floor, and they watched him frantically slurp at the milk, putting a paw into the bowl as if afraid the milk would get away from him.

Margaret smiled, "I think Aunt Jan's got an old basket she doesn't use any more.  It would make a nice bed.  Let me get it for you." 

She returned with the basket and an old cushion to find Matt and the pup out in the yard. 

"Didn't want him to make a mess in the restaurant," Matt explained.

They waited while the pup explored the bushes and decided which he wanted to mark, and then Matt picked him up.  "Do you mind if we take him with us?"

"Of course not."

Matt took the basket from her and put it on the floor of the cab on her side.  Placing the pup in it, he turned toward her.  Before Margaret could say a word, he lifted her on to the first step.  "Watch your head as you get in," he instructed.

Margaret examined the interior of the cab.  Behind their two individual seats in front was another long seat, and beyond that was a partition.

Matt climbed in, moved to the back seat and said, "Come and look."  His voice held all the pride of a child displaying a new toy.

She stood up and slid onto the back seat as he moved the doors behind it aside.  Margaret stared at the made-up double bed that took up most of the space in the compartment. 

"Stereo, refrigerator, television set, even a DVD player," said Matt, proudly naming all the accessories in the cab.  He pulled out one of two huge drawers under the bed.  "Space to keep your clothes.  It even has its own door to enter by.  Home away from home."

She glanced up at the roof that opened like the moon roof of a car.  Imagination immediately supplied a picture of Matt and herself on the bed, moonlight bathing them as they made love.

Margaret returned to her seat and sat down abruptly.  Beneath her fingers the rich indigo velour felt soft and very sensuous.  What was wrong with her?  It was almost as if her mind needed washing out with soap.

"It's very nice," she said blankly. 

"When two drivers do the long distance runs, one usually sleeps while the other drives," Matt said.  "Having a bed in the cab saves time.  Even when a driver is alone, he can pull into a rest area and sleep whenever he's tired without having to go out of his way to look for a motel."

As Matt started the engine, Margaret glanced out of the window.  There was a perfectly practical explanation for the bed.

While the engine idled, Matt pointed out instruments on the mile long panel.  Steering the truck out of the parking lot with ease, he glanced at her, but didn't say anything.

Margaret sat stiffly, hands clenched.  The paralyzing nausea might surface at any minute.  As the big rig sped down Main Street and merged with freeway traffic, she continued to wait. 

Slowly memories surfaced.  Her mother reading to her as the truck sped down the highway.  Herself drawing in the back seat, or working on the scarf she was learning to knit for her doll.  Her father pulling up next to a fairground, so she could have a ride on the giant Ferris wheel, then buying her an enormous candy cane, and showing her how to eat the sticky concoction without getting it in her hair.  Timmy chuckling with delight his hands on the steering wheel.  Timmy sitting on Daddy's shoulders and saying, "Look, sis.  I'm taller than you now."

Margaret blinked.  "I was happy riding with them," she said on a note of discovery.  "Very happy."

Matt smiled.  It was turning out better than he had hoped.  Janet had called him, made him promise to bring Margaret back if she showed any signs of stress at all.  Matt himself had suffered qualms of uneasiness, wondering if he was putting undue pressure on Margaret, by inviting her to ride with him.  But her words just now, assured him everything was going to be all right.  Luckily the fragment of the past that had surfaced had reminded Margaret not all her memories connected with trucking were bad. 

"The pain of their death formed some sort of mental block in my mind," Matt heard Margaret say.  "How could I have forgotten all the good times we had together?  Daddy loved it when we could all accompany him on one of his long trips.  I loved it too."

Over the radio, a husky voice crooned about love and pain.  Matt switched it off. 

"My mother always rode with him, because he was a long distance driver.  It was hard on her leaving us behind, but she told me how lonely it was for Daddy on the road, if she wasn't along.  She would have only seen him once a month if she hadn't gone with him.  I heard her tell Aunt Jan once; the hardest choice she had to make was between her marriage and her children.  I didn't understand then, but I do now and I'm glad she made the decision to ride with him."

Silence filled the cab as Margaret finished speaking, till Matt leaned forward and flicked a switch.  Instantly, a cracked voice came over the air.  "This is Lone Wolf.  This is Lone Wolf.  Ain't anyone listening in?  A few more miles without talking to anyone and my vocal chords are going to atrophy."

Margaret looked at the CB as Matt picked up the hand piece.  "Lone Wolf, this is Bedouin Two.  Where are you headed?"

"San Francisco.  And yourself?"

"Just up the coast a bit," said Matt.  "This is a joyride."

"Oh yeah, who have you got with you?  Your sweetheart?"

"Not quite," Matt exchanged a smile with Margaret, "but I'm working on it."

Margaret blushed and turned to stare out of the window.

"Well, if she is tired of talking to you, she could say hello to an old geezer."

Matt held the hand piece out to Margaret, an eyebrow raised in enquiry.  She took it from him and said, "Hello, Lone Wolf."

"Hello there, sweetheart.  You got a call name?"

Margaret hesitated and then said, "No."

"We've got to have us a christening, then.  Can you think of a name, Bedouin Two?" asked Lone Wolf.

"Well," Matt cast a sidelong glance at Margaret as he said, "at times she has a certain keep-your-distance look that reminds me of Royalty."

Margaret stared at him.  He'd never mentioned her Princess look before. 

"How about Snow White?"  Lone Wolf suggested.  Margaret laughed.  Matt took the hand piece from her and said, "She's got the most beautiful red hair.  Snow White won't do."

Beautiful?  thought Margaret.  Her  hair?

"How about Rose Red, then?  Just read my three year old grandson that story last night.  Keep hiding the book, but he keeps finding it.  Damned, if I can figure out why the li'l tyke wants to hear that same story every single night."

"Rose Red is fine," said Matt handing the piece back to Margaret.

"Welcome to the family, Rose Red," said Lone Wolf.

"The family?"  asked Margaret.

"That's what we truckers are," Lone Wolf said.  "One big family.  I won't say happy, mind you, because we're not that all the time, but out on the road when we're all alone, the other voices are all we've got.  Driving eight to ten hours each day can get pretty lonesome for us long distance drivers.  Some of us don't have anyone waiting for us at home, and our only real connections are our trucking buddies."

"How long have you been a trucker?"  asked Margaret.

"Forty years.  Started when I was twenty and never wanted to do anythin' else.  My wife left me for another man because I was never home, but my daughter understands, and I stay with her and her family between trips.  This truck means more to me than anything else in the world.  Hope I die in it."

Daddy had felt like that about his work too.  She had heard him say once, "A man's got to work at what he enjoys to give it his best."

"What kind of work do you do, Rose Red?"

Matt listened to Margaret describe her job.  Her voice flowed in and around him, wrapping him in its gentleness.  He had made it clear to the women he had known in the past that he was not in the running for a long term relationship.  With Margaret, he wanted to build castles in the air.  But dreams, Matt knew, could not stay up by themselves.  They needed good solid foundations under them to give them substance.  What he didn't know was whether he had what it took to work on those foundations.

"Got to leave you now, Lone Wolf," Matt said.  I'm going to get off the 5 here, and head for the ocean on side roads."

"I know a good place," said Lone Wolf.  "When you get to 101, instead of crossing it, head south on it for a mile and a half.  Park in the rest area there, and go down the slope behind it.  When you get to the beach, veer to your right and you'll see a sheltered cove like they have in the movies.  Haven't told anyone else about the spot, but a princess deserves a beautiful setting."

"Thanks, Lone Wolf," said Matt.

"Goodbye, Lone Wolf," Margaret added.  "And," she hesitated for a second and then said, "Happy Trucking."