So Long, Chester Wheeler(49)

“Okay,” I said.

“You’re not saying much.”

“I was practicing that ‘keeping my mouth shut’ thing we were talking about before. Do we even know where Mike is?”

“Yeah, I know where he lives. We keep in touch in a loose sort of way. He lives in LA. Venice Beach. Just what you need, right? Another long drive chasing another elusive bit of closure that he might or might not find.”

“Yeah. Just what I need. Still, when you’ve got this much invested already . . .”

“Tell you what I’ll do,” she said. “I’ll write out an apology to Chet. For every part of the thing that really was my fault. For all the stuff I look back on and see I could’ve done better. And I’ll give it to you to give to him. And then I’ll write out Mike’s address and you two can move along.”

“I think it would mean more in person.”

“I’d get all tongue-tied.”

“You could read it to him.”

For a moment, there was no answer. No reaction.

Then she said, “Under one condition. If he promises to say not one single word the whole time.”

I rose from the table.

“I’ll go see if I can negotiate that,” I said.



“We have to go get gas,” I said as I stepped back inside the Winnebago.

I was leaving everything more emotionally complex off the table for the moment. Until I could catch my emotional breath.

“How much have we got?”

“It’s getting down near a quarter of a tank. And you told me there has to be at least a quarter of a tank to keep the generator from shutting down.”

“So we need to get me up?”

It really did seem like a huge undertaking when we were going maybe a mile.

“I’ll just drive carefully,” I said.

I plunked down in the driver’s seat and pulled away from that curb for what felt like the first time in weeks. Right in that moment I almost couldn’t remember my life before that curb, and what I could remember didn’t feel real.

“So, you’re going to tell me what happened in there?” Chester asked a block or two later. “Or you’re just going to let me swing?”

“She’s going to write you out an apology.”

“For what exactly?”

“Everything she regrets, I guess. I talked her into reading it out loud to you so you hear the apology straight from the horse’s mouth. I didn’t think it would mean as much if it was just words on a page.”

He didn’t answer.

I pulled into the first gas station I saw, and filled it up with Ellie’s credit card. It took forever, because the Winnie’s tank was huge.

I watched shimmering heat waves rise off the pavement and felt the sweat trickle down my torso under my shirt. I vaguely wondered if it was hot enough to cause the gas to spontaneously combust.

Apparently not.

I climbed back in and fired up the engine, turning the dashboard AC up to full blast and training the vents onto my face.

Chester muttered something, but I couldn’t make out the words over all that fan noise.

“What’d you say, Chester?”

“I said an apology would actually be nice.”

“There’s one big catch, though. You can’t say anything.”

“Should’ve known. There’s always a catch.”

I shifted into drive and headed back toward our curb.

“Is it worth it to you for the apology?”

“I think so. When are we doing this?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“I didn’t figure she would know. She has to put her thoughts in writing. I didn’t think she would have any idea how long that would take her.”

“So what do we do now?” he asked.

He sounded like an impatient child asking if we were there yet.

“I guess we wait,” I said.

“I hate waiting.”

“I guess we wait . . . whether you hate it or not.”





Chapter Sixteen:




* * *





You Want to Hear This

“I’m. So. Bored!” Chester shouted, nearly blowing out my eardrums on the final word.

“You don’t have to yell,” I said.

We were sitting across from each other in the Winnebago and I was reading an e-book on my phone. Granted, it was evening, and we had been waiting for hours. I didn’t entirely fail to take his point.

“But I’ve just been sitting here for days. Doing nothing. How long do you think this damn thing is going to take her?”

“I think it’s going to take as long as it takes, and I think you’ve been waiting for thirty-two years for an apology, so maybe you can just be patient a little while longer.”

“But I don’t know what to do with myself. I can’t just stare at a phone for hours like you can.”

“I’m reading a book,” I said.

“No you’re not. You’re staring at your phone.”

I sighed, and dropped my hands and the phone into my lap. The idea that I could read through his distractions was not panning out.