So Long, Chester Wheeler(34)

The light of it revealed a surprising amount of detail on that mesa, which was much more colorful and intricately eroded than I had realized in the dark.

It was so beautiful that I almost woke up Chester. I almost called to him and said, “You have to see this.”

I didn’t, of course. Even if we hadn’t been talking about Chester, I wouldn’t have done it. I knew the beauty of that moonlit night might be a personal thing, something that wouldn’t strike anyone else quite the same way it struck me. And, after all, it was the middle of the night. It was . . . I felt around for my phone and then tapped its screen. It was a little after three in the morning.

And we were talking about Chester.

And you can’t eat a full moon.

I lay awake for a while, watching it, as it gradually dawned on me that I was unlikely to get back to sleep.

I rose, stepped into my jeans, put on a fresh shirt from the minicloset, and settled behind the wheel again, propping my phone up in the cupholder. I had put Chester’s ex-wife’s address into Maps, and I could see the virtual pushpin on my screen. It read “Sue’s House.”

Maybe I could even get there before Chester woke up.

Maybe he’d open his eyes and say, “Where are we?” and I’d be able to say, “We’re there.”

Speaking of Chester and awakeness, he sputtered up into half consciousness when I started up the engine. It was actually a relief. He’d been sleeping for an awfully long time again, and I’d begun to worry that he’d fallen into a coma or something.

“What?” he said. “What’re we doing?”

“We’re driving,” I said.

“Oh. Good.”

Then he was gone again.





Chapter Eleven:




* * *





There

I thought the red rock Arizona scenery would be lost in big-city ugliness as I got into Phoenix, but I was mostly wrong. Sure, the view outside my windshield quickly filled with buildings and traffic lights. But the house we were looking for was located in a suburb on the southeast end of the city—a sprawl of tract homes with all that southwestern beauty laid out behind them like a painted movie set.

I glanced down at my phone to see one amazing word showing large on the map screen.

“Arrived.”

The house was a one-story ranch affair, made of stucco painted a pale green. It was surrounded by concrete walkways and a driveway, and sections of yard filled in with coarse gray gravel where my eyes expected to see green lawn. Maybe there was no such thing as green lawns in Phoenix, Arizona.

It was barely seven in the morning, too early to wake up the inhabitant—or inhabitants—of the house, and Chester was still asleep. I parked at the curb, pulled all the curtains down, and stretched out on one of the couch beds to see if I could finish a night’s sleep.



I don’t know how much later it was when Chester woke up. I had been sleeping, but not for long.

“What is this?” he asked, his voice sharp. “Where are we?”

“We’re there,” I said.

I was feeling pleased with myself, because crossing most of the country in an aging Winnebago with an aging Chester had been a massive undertaking, and I almost couldn’t believe I’d pulled it off.

“That’s it,” he said, sounding increasingly panicked. “That’s the house.”

I sat up in bed and looked at him.

His seat was still laid out flat, but he was managing to raise his head slightly. He had the curtain on the passenger window up about an inch. Just enough to accommodate one peering eye.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s the house.”

“Holy crap,” Chester said.

He seemed to have descended into panic the way a person sinks into deep water. I pictured it closing back up over his head, swallowing him.

“You don’t sound very happy that we’re here,” I said. “You did want to be here, right? I mean, wasn’t that the point of this whole thing?”

“Yeah,” Chester said. “Sure. But now we’re here.”

I sighed, and lifted my own curtain the tiniest bit.

A woman was sweeping the front porch. It was hard to see much detail in her face from that distance, but she didn’t seem old enough to have been married to Chester. But she might simply have aged better—most people do—or maybe I would see things differently when I got face to face with her. If I ever did.

She kept glancing over at the Winnebago. I think she was wondering why it was parked in front of her house.

I dropped the curtain again, almost guiltily, though I have no idea what I thought I had to be guilty about. Well . . . that’s not entirely true. I had brought Chester Wheeler back into her orbit. That’s not exactly a helpful favor to do for anyone.

“Is that your ex?” I asked Chester.

“Not sure,” he said.

“How can you not be sure? You were married to her. You had three kids together.”

“But I haven’t seen her in thirty-two years,” he said. “People change. But, yeah. I guess that could be her.”

I waited for several minutes to hear what he thought our next move should be, but he offered nothing.

“So are we going in?” I asked him.