So Long, Chester Wheeler(84)

I rubbed my eyes and then held my hands up over my face, palms toward her, to indicate that I needed her to move back and give me some space.

“I doubt I got two hours,” I said.

“Well, don’t blame me. You should’ve slept when you had the chance. We’ve got to get miles behind us.”

We really didn’t. We had all day, and the family reunion wasn’t until morning. But I was already awake, so I got up, made coffee, and got back in the driver’s seat.

“Why are you limping?” she asked as she buckled herself in.

Yes, I let her buckle her own seat belt. I wasn’t about to make that mistake twice.

“Because I kicked your oxygen tank in the dark.”

“Well, that wasn’t very bright.”

“Maybe the miles will go better today with less talking,” I said.

And, for a few miles at least, that seemed to work.



Around the time we neared the South Dakota state line, Estelle’s misgivings began to surface.

“I’m not so sure this is a great idea,” she said.

“But it was your idea.”

“I know. But that doesn’t mean it was a good one. Don’t you ever have a bad idea?”

“Often,” I said. “But if my ideas involve somebody else’s help, by the time they go to a certain amount of trouble for me, I think I’d tend to follow through anyway.”

Estelle wrinkled her pinched nose.

“There you go talking in riddles again.”

“I said I’m not turning around now.”

“Oh. Well, at least that I can understand. I don’t like it, but at least I can figure out what you’re saying.”

“Are you afraid to see your family?”

“Of course I’m afraid to see them. I haven’t seen them in seventeen years. And not by any coincidence, either. I mean, sure, Mel and I moved away, but there are planes and trains, you know. There must be reasons why they didn’t want to see me.”

“Well, they’re going to see you now. Like it or not.”

“What if they’re cold to me?”

“Start out being warm to them. That tends to help.”

“This might go badly.”

“Yes. It might. But it might be your last chance to do it. And I really don’t think any outcome could be as bad as knowing you chickened out and missed your last chance. And then you’ll never know how it could have gone.”

She sighed. She looked out the window for a few beats, as if the scenery were breathtaking out there. Note: it was not.

“Well, it pains me to admit it,” she said, “but I think you might be right.”

“And also, consider the possibility that it might go well.”

“I wish I had your optimism.”

“It’s not something you have or don’t have,” I said. “It’s like a muscle. You have to give it a little workout now and then.”

“A bit late for me, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” I said. “A bit late. But not too late. Because you’re not dead yet.”

And yes. I did know I had said all that before.



We pulled into the site of the family reunion at a little after 6:30 p.m. Someone in the family had rented a farm, or a ranch—I honestly wasn’t sure what to call it—in a very flat middle of nowhere, a fair distance west of the Missouri River.

It didn’t seem to have a house, or any kind of living quarters. In fact, it appeared to be a gigantic rectangle of nothing, save for a massive and very high-ceilinged barn that could have doubled as an airplane hangar.

Estelle had said her daughter rented the place because it was more or less equidistant for all of the travelers—except, of course, us. I would have been hard pressed to find a single other feature to recommend it.

The good news was that we could camp right there in front of the barn. The bad news is that there was no hookup to water or electricity. There was water and electricity, but it would turn out to be inside the barn and not nearly close enough to anyplace we could park.

When I shut down the engine and killed the headlights, I was surprised by how dark it had gotten.

There was one other RV on the place already.

“Somebody else is here early,” I said to Estelle. “You want to go say hello?”

“No, I do not want to go say hello. I want to go to bed.”

“At six thirty in the afternoon?”

“I’m tired from all the worrying. Are you going to argue if I say I need the sleep?”

“You sure you don’t want to say a quick hello first?”

“That’s my grandnephew, and he’s a horse’s ass. So no.”

I tucked Estelle into bed, which I had left made up from the night before. I placed her oxygen tank where I kept it while driving—wedged behind one of the seats, so it couldn’t go flying in the event of a sudden stop. I had dislocated quite enough toes to suit myself.

“I’m going to limp out and look around the place,” I said.

“I want a kiss good night.”

It was a first, and an odd request, so I just stood there for a moment saying nothing.

“Just on the forehead,” she said. “I’m not being weird with you.”