So Long, Chester Wheeler(70)

Now and then other drivers would pull level with me, and try to peer in to get a look at me, which is hard when you’re so many feet higher off the road than they are. Either it had something to do with my bumper stickers, or it was complete and total paranoia on my part, brought on by exhaustion, and the whole thing didn’t exist outside of my head.

After sixteen hours on the road it gets harder to sort these things out.

I can’t even explain why I did it. I had just completely lost my will to continue driving a Winnebago through flat and uninteresting states. Home had become a magnet with an irresistible pull.

When I finally, finally pulled up in front of Chester’s house, I sighed out a boatload of tension I hadn’t even known I was holding. In that moment, I knew I’d risked a lot by driving through so much fatigue.

I should be able to look back and say it wasn’t worth the risk, and, in a purely cerebral sense, yes. I can say that. But I was so relieved to be back that it felt worth it. It felt worth anything.

I let myself into my house and fell straight onto the bed with all my clothes on. I didn’t even take off my shoes.

That’s the last thing I remember from that day.



I woke at about three o’clock in the morning, and holy crap, was I awake. The kind of awake that you just know will never fade and let a person get back to sleep. I’m sure the six cups of coffee played a role.

I kicked off my shoes and lay awake in the mostly dark room, just the slight glow of a streetlight shining into the living room and barely making it through my open bedroom doorway.

I realized I was supposed to call Sue and tell her I’d made it home safely. But probably not in the wee small hours of the morning I wasn’t supposed to. I tried to make a mental note to do it later in the morning, but it seemed so ripe for failure that I gave up and set a notification on my phone.

Then I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, even though I knew full well it was hopeless. I lay awake for hours, and found myself plunged into the middle of a very strange sensation.

It started when I thought, I’m back in my life.

That’s when it all caught up to me.

Because “I” was not the “I” I’d been when I left. And my life was not the life it had been. So who was I, and what was this life I’d just rejoined?

I knew I would find out fairly soon, but, as I lay there in the half dark, I literally didn’t have so much as a guess. It felt like opening a door with not even the faintest hint of what I would find on the other side.

Suffice it to say I was not a fan of the experience.





Chapter Twenty-Three:




* * *





Sentimental

Ellie called at nine o’clock–ish, which was too bad, as I had just gotten back to sleep.

“Where are you?” she asked.

And I thought, Great question. Existentially speaking.

“Home,” I said.

“Already?”

“Yeah. I really put on the gas. So what do I do with the Winnebago?”

“You know . . . ,” she began, and I could “hear” a sort of internal sigh from her end of the line. “. . . I honestly don’t care. Keep it, sell it. Really, whatever.”

“But if I sell it, I’d give you the money, right? It would be part of his estate and you’d split it between you and your brothers?”

I heard a kind of braying noise that I realized after the fact was a forced laugh of some sort. Probably of the sarcastic sort.

“What estate? He really didn’t have anything. If he did, I wouldn’t share it with my brothers anyway, because where were they when all the care workers were running out on us and somebody needed to deal with things?”

“What about the house?”

“Mortgaged to the hilt. I’ll sell it, but what’s left over will be a pittance if there’s anything left over at all. Hey, speaking of money. I did something, and now I’m unsure . . .”

I sat up in bed, because she sounded uncomfortable and that made me edgy as well.

“What did you . . .”

“I sent you a check.”

“Thank you.”

“I sent you two checks, actually. And now I’m not sure. Maybe I shouldn’t have. But you can just tear up the other one if you don’t want it.”

I’m not sure I understand, I thought.

“I’m not sure I understand,” I said.

“I went online to a couple of community colleges and found out what they charge for a certification course. And I sent you a check made out to the closest one near where you live. I put a note in there saying you can just tear it up if you don’t want to do it. But now I’m thinking you’ll be mad.”

I got up and walked to the window. I think I was trying to wake up more fully to deal with this conversation. I was still completely dressed. I drew back the curtain, and the light was searing in my eyes. And I was looking at Chester Wheeler’s house, which somehow looked unavoidably sad. How a house can be sad, I’m not sure. If I’d had to guess, I’d say I was anthropomorphizing, and the sad was in me. That seemed like a reasonable bet.

“I’m not mad,” I said, flopping back down on the bed. “It was thoughtful, and generous, and I know it came from a good place. But it’s out of the question, because I have to find work that pays. And I need to find it more or less right now.”