Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Gardenias for Breakfast
Copyright © 2005, 2012, 2015, 2020 Robin’s Nest Productions. All rights reserved.
RobinGunn.com
Previously published in 2005 by WestBow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson Inc., P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee, 37214, under ISBN 0-8499-4447-3 and in 2012 by eChristian, Inc., 2235 Enterprise Street, Suite 140, Escondido, CA 92029, under ISBN 978-1-61843-188-2.
Unless specified otherwise, Scripture quotations used in this book are from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
2020 Ebook Cover and interior design by Rachel Schwartz and Ross Gunn IV
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-942704-41-6
Printed in the United States of America
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of my grandmother,
Great Lady Gertrude, who taught me how
to make my memories beautiful;
my mother, Barbara,
who taught me how
to make my home beautiful;
and my daughter, Rachel,
who is teaching me how
to make my words beautiful.
Because of the three of you,
my story came and found me.
Jesus said, “Daughter, you took a risk trusting me,
and now you’re healed and whole.
Live well, live blessed!”
Luke 8:48
“Everybody has a story. You listen to their story, Honeygirl, and your story will come find you.”
I was twelve the summer my grandmother gave me those words. She touched my flushed cheek with her small, soft hands and kissed the end of my freckled nose. We were sitting on her porch swing, listening to the lush Louisiana twilight being beckoned to our corner of the world by the crickets’ persistent chitter-buzz.
I think I remember that moment so clearly not because of Grand Lady’s words but because of her touch. For years she had given me words. Every year on my birthday she had sent me a book. Each Christmas she had sent me a handwritten poem along with a pair of pink slippers. But on this rare occasion when I sat beside Grand Lady and she gave me her soft touch along with her words, I felt blessed by some sort of beauty that was larger than life.
Last spring, my daughter turned twelve, and I had only one wish. I wanted Hannah to go to Louisiana, as I had when I was her age. I wanted my ninety-two-year-old Grand Lady to touch Hannah’s face and to give her the soft words that would go inside and bless her. I wanted Hannah to know the same mysterious beauty that had filled a solitary place in my spirit with hope.
No one, not even my husband, knew about my secret wish. If I had told Tom, he would have tried to scrape together the money, and I knew we didn’t have it. We own a small business on a small island. The island of Maui. Yes, we are blessed to live there. We realize that. Visitors from around the world come to our shop to rent snorkel gear and tell us if they lived here they would never want to leave. I didn’t want to leave for good. Only for a week or so.
Then an unexpected twist caused my wish to come true.
The day school ended for the summer, Hannah and I took off on our adventure. We drove hundreds of miles with Arizona sunsets in the rearview mirror and Texas thunderstorms through the windshield. We arrived in Louisiana on a sultry summer’s eve, and I felt as if we had stepped into a dream. Everything was familiar: the Big House, the cemetery, the Piggly Wiggly, even the pew where we sat beside Grand Lady on Sunday morning and I slipped my grown hand into hers.
Hannah shucked corn at Mr. Joe’s fruit stand and ventured into the attic where she discovered Aunt Peg’s sixty-year-old mothballed gowns. My sweet girl gathered gardenias by the basketful and wore them in her hair the night she lit up the evening sky with sparklers. We drank Southern sweet tea like hummingbirds and ate enough Louisiana black-eyed peas to last us for a good long while.
Then one afternoon, when I wasn’t looking, Grand Lady touched my Hannah’s face and gave her words that crushed her. That was the day my story came and found me.
My brother sent a limousine to pick us up at the airport when Hannah and I arrived in Seattle on June 20.
Hannah couldn’t stop smiling. She took to the leather seat of that ridiculously large vehicle like royalty. Twelve-year-olds must find it easier to embrace a princess frame of mind than a midlife mama who secretly harbors an inferiority complex whenever she’s around her brother.
The driver wove through the early morning traffic while Hannah tried out a few buttons on the control panel next to her seat. With a click, a flat TV screen lowered from the ceiling, and Hannah was in cartoon heaven.
“Keep it turned low, will you, honey?” I didn’t want to scold her for playing with the buttons, but I felt the compulsion to somehow correct or direct her.
I closed my eyes and wondered if I had any headache pills in my purse, or if I’d only packed them in my luggage. I was too tired to dig in my purse to find out.
We had taken a red-eye flight that left at 11:30 the night before and routed through San Francisco. Hannah slept some; I hadn’t slept at all. Not a good way to start such a journey as the one that lay before us. It was almost eight in the morning, and I was a little confused over how this day would unfold.
For the last week and a half, Tom had been marking maps and making calls to relatives, asking if Hannah and I could stop by for a visit. I left a lot of the details to him because I was busy preparing meals to freeze for Tom and Justin, and packing for Hannah and me. According to my “organized” husband, everything I needed was in the binder he had prepared for me. Maps, schedules, phone numbers, recommended attractions. My husband, the armchair virtual vacationer, knew more about what I should expect from here on out than I did.
When Tom had taken Hannah and me to the airport last night, he said he felt as if he had been on the trek across the States already, due to all the planning he had done. He said, “I kept a map in the office so I can follow along. I’m going to pray for you every day. Have a great time and come home richer.”
I felt like a ’49er, off to strike gold. I imagined the gold flecks of pleasure I hoped to see in my Grand Lady’s eyes when she saw my Hannah for the first time. That was the way I was going to get rich on this trip.
My brother, however, was rich in other ways, which was evident when the limo pulled into his gated community and drove up a circular driveway to a grand, modern house. Wide steps like those found at the entrance to a luxury resort led to the front door, which was made of stained glass.
“I’ll get your luggage, ma’am,” the driver said, as Hannah and I stepped out. “You are expected, so please go on in.”
Hannah tried the elaborate door handle, and we stepped inside the open, airy home decorated with black furniture with chrome accents. In the far left corner of the sunken living room was a waterfall integrated into a main wall that was made from river rock.
“Cool,” Hannah said under her breath.
“Hello?” I called out timidly. “Jon? Patty?” My voice echoed in the openness. I felt as if I were in a nature display at a natural history museum. The recorded bird sounds should start any minute. I looked around for stuffed chipmunks.
“Maaa-omm!”
I jumped. So did Hannah. It wasn’t birdcalls we were hearing through the overhead sound system but rather the universal call of a preadolescent daughter.
“Maaa-omm! Daaa-ad! They’re here!”
We still couldn’t see anyone. Hannah looked in the corners of the high ceiling and nudged me. “Over there,” she said. “Do you see it?” She nodded at what looked like a lighting fixture to me.
“What is it?”
“A camera, Mom. How else would they know we’re standing here?”
Jon came bounding in from a side room and grabbed me by the shoulders, kissing me on both cheeks, as if we were French and had been raised on caviar and cotillion dances at the country club.
“Abigail,” he said in his best paternal voice. “Look at you. You look more like Mom than ever!”
That made me cringe. Not only because of his patronizing tone, but also because the last person in the world I wanted to resemble in any way was our mother.
“And this must be Hannah.” He offered her a gentlemanly handshake. “How was your flight? Any problems?”
“No.”
The limo driver came through the front door just then with our luggage.
“Is there more?” Jon asked.
“No, that’s it.”
“You two sure travel light! Good for you.” He pulled from his pocket a tiny device that looked like a credit card and shot a thin beam of blue light at a box on the wall. “Patty, are you on your way down here? Girls?”
Patty’s slightly flustered voice came through the elaborate intercom system. “I’ll be down in a minute, Jon. I just stepped out of the shower.”
Jon gave me a sideways smirk. “That means we have a minimum of half an hour to ourselves before she makes her appearance.”
“I heard that!”
“We’ll be in the kitchen, Pattycakes. Girls? Come to the kitchen and meet your cousin.”
No response.
“They’re on their way,” Jon said confidently.
I wondered how he knew that. Did some other high-tech device make it possible for him to be the only one who could hear the voices? These had to be innovations from his company he was demonstrating for us. One of his personal achievements? I didn’t ask, because I didn’t know if I could absorb the truth if his answer was yes.
Jon led us to the left side of the house past a huge fireplace open on both sides. I looked over my shoulder and noticed that the limo driver had disappeared: Our battered luggage sat in the entry where he had deposited it.
The kitchen was a surprise to me, because I expected it to have an industrial look with lots of stainless steel appliances and countertops. Instead it was full of bright blues, yellows, and reds in French country style, complete with a stuffed hen perched on the counter. It didn’t fit with the rest of the house, but somehow it fit with Jon’s quirky tastes. Or perhaps this kitchen had emerged from Patty’s preferences.
“Is that chicken real?” Hannah asked in quick surprise.
“Yep,” said Jon. “It’s a real, stuffed hen.”
“Is it okay if I touch it?”
“Sure. Monsie? Are you here?”
When no one responded, Jon said, “I think Patty said she wasn’t coming in until we get back from our trip. Looks like I’m your chef for the morning. What are you two hungry for?”
“We had a bagel at the airport in San Francisco,” I said. “I’m okay. Hannah?”
She shrugged.
“Scrambled eggs,” Jon announced. “I’ll whip up a bunch for the gang. Have a seat. Hannah, you like orange juice? I’m sure we have some juice there in the fridge.”
Hannah went over to the refrigerator and responsively pulled out a carton of orange juice. “Where do you keep your glasses, Uncle Jon?”
He stopped his search for the perfect, copper-bottom frying pan and gave Hannah a big smile. “Uncle Jon,” he repeated. “I like hearing you say that, Hannah Banana.”
Her expression turned to an instant grimace.
“Oh, sorry. You don’t like that name, do you? What do you like to be called?”
“Hannah. Or Hana.” She paused. “That’s my Hawaiian name.”
“Haa-naa,” he repeated. “Okay. Like ha-ha. Ha-ha Hana. Easy enough. Glasses are in the cupboard on your right. Any food allergies I should know about? Dairy products? Peanuts?”
Hannah shook her head.
“Prepare to be dazzled.” Jon cracked the first egg high above the bowl and then repeated the performance with the entire dozen. He added salt and pepper and his “secret” spice, which I recognized as basil, and kept Hannah entertained as he went after the concoction with a wire whisk.
I didn’t know Jon cooked. Or at least he entered into the process of cooking as if he enjoyed it. Our mom didn’t cook. Or bake. Her thin frame could live on air, like one of those little oxygen plants that needs neither food nor water to grow.
Jon and I grew up fending for ourselves in many ways, including meals. Maybe necessity was the mother of invention in our childhood development of cooking skills. Necessity was, in some ways, our only mother. At least in the kitchen.
The older of Jon’s two daughters entered with her bare feet slapping against the polished, hardwood floor. She was wearing flannel pajama bottoms, a pink top covering very little, and a stocking cap over her head.
“Tiff, come meet your cousin, Ha-na.” He overemphasized the pronunciation, as if he had learned a foreign language overnight and was demonstrating his proficiency.
The two girls politely said hello. Tiffany was thirteen and seemed to have immediately sized up the situation and realized she had the advantage with her age. She covered her mouth as she yawned. “Did anybody call for me this morning?”
“Not that I know of.” Jon sprinkled shredded cheese on top of the eggs.
Jasmine entered with a younger sister’s expression of timidity. She and Hannah were only three months apart in age. Hannah was older.
Jon made complimentary introductions all around and then wisely put the three girls to work setting the table. None of them spoke, but all of them used their eyes like scanners to examine each other when they thought the observed party wasn’t paying attention.
I was proud of Hannah. She had taken an all-night flight that left Maui only a few hours after her last day of school—the last day of elementary school, no less. This was her first time on the mainland since she was five and her first time to meet these two cousins. She did a good job all through breakfast of being polite and attentive.
When Tiffany and Jasmine finished picking at their eggs and toast, Jon suggested they take Ha-na up to their room. Hannah willingly agreed, and I thought that she was made of sturdier stuff than I was when I was her age.
For my twelfth summer, I was shipped off to Grand Lady’s big white house in Howell, Louisiana. Jon had graduated from high school a year early. Our father was ill. My mother didn’t know what to do with me.
I spent my first two weeks of rural Louisiana life reading every book I could carry home from the musty-smelling Howell Public Library. With the door shut to the upstairs guest room of the Big House, I begged those novels to take me to faraway places, and every one of them obliged. Sometimes, when the temperature rose to sweltering in my room, I was forced to move out to the bench that circled the big magnolia tree. But that put me in plain view and frightened me.
Whenever any of my four boy cousins came near me, I wished I could put on a magic ring, like Frodo, and disappear. My cousins didn’t read books. They went wading down at the creek where they caught frogs and snakes and sometimes spent the whole night sleeping outside in their pup tents. My brother, who spent his summer days in the garage building small robots, never had done those sorts of outdoor boy things. I didn’t know what to make of my cousins.
“I am so, so sorry.” Patty made a whooshing sort of sound as she brushed past me, reconnecting my thoughts with the present. She lightly touched my shoulder before taking her place at the table in front of a plate of cold eggs.
I said, “That’s okay. It’s good to see you.”
Patty was focusing on Jon, giving him an expression that silently pleaded for forgiveness, before turning her attention to me. “I do apologize, Abby. It’s nice to see you, too. Sorry I haven’t been very hospitable. It’s this trip! I am not ready. I can’t find anything! We have so much to do before we leave in the morning. Sorry I’m in such a state.” Her frameless glasses looked crooked on her thin face. I hadn’t seen her hair that deep shade of red before.
I smiled my benevolence. “It’s okay, Patty. Can I do anything to help you get ready?”
“Oh, heavens, no! You’ve done more than enough just being willing to come all this way and drive our car to Atlanta. My parents still can’t believe you agreed to do that. You saved the day with their anniversary party. Really.”
“It’s a …” I paused not knowing the right word. Privilege? Honor? Treat? I took a shortcut through the woods of pleasantries and came right out in the clearing.
“Listen.” I leaned forward. “I really, really appreciate this. All of it: the chance to see so much of the States with Hannah, the chance to visit so many relatives. It’s very generous of you to pay for everything. I want you to know how grateful I am.”
Patty turned to Jon and said in a low voice, “You told her we were paying for everything?”
He nodded slowly.
“Gas? Hotels? Everything?”
Another nod.
Patty’s mouth dropped open.
I stopped breathing.
A fleeting thought I’d had a week ago returned. My son was lamenting a surfboard trade he had made with a guy who worked at the pizza place next to our shop. Justin had ended up with the short end of the deal when it came to the value of the two boards and vowed never again to agree to any deals without getting all the conditions in writing up front. I had wondered at that moment if I should call Jon and verify the details before activating his plane tickets and flying to Seattle. Sitting at his kitchen table now, I wished I had made the call.
“Jon, you and I should have talked about this more before you made such promises to your sister.” Patty gave him a stern look.
I braced myself for the disastrous conversation that was sure to follow.
Patty glibly reached over and grabbed my sweating hand. She laughed loudly. “I had you going there, didn’t I?”
I glanced at my grinning brother and back at his wife.
“Oh, Abby! You should see the look on your face!” Patty squealed. “You can stop worrying. Of course we’re going to pay for everything!”
She laughed. Jon laughed. I remembered why these two were perfect for each other. I also remembered why it had been a long time since I had visited them.
Once the dishes were loaded in the supersonic, silent, garbage-disposal-included dishwasher, I asked again if I could do anything to help.
“Packing is pretty much a one-woman deal the way I do it,” Patty said. “Aren’t you tired after your all-night flight? I would be. Why don’t you take a nap?”
“You haven’t seen your room yet, have you?” Jon asked. “Man, we’re lost around here without Monsie. Come on, I’ll take your luggage up for you.”
I willingly followed Jon through the labyrinth to a large, simple guest room with an inviting, queen-size bed covered in a white down comforter. The lull of the ocean surf was playing over the sound system.
“We thought the ocean sounds might help you feel at home.” Jon was so proud of himself.
“It’s very nice. Thank you.”
“Sure. We’re going to spend the day getting ready around here. I have to run over to the office for a few hours this afternoon but make yourself homely.”
I looked up at Jon with a start. Our dad used to say that. It was his private little joke, and he used to mortify me with it when my friends came over.
“I can’t believe you just said, ‘Make yourself homely.’”
“No, I didn’t. I said …” Jon looked at me with a strange shadow over his face. Was it fear? Remorse? Shock that I had caught him using that phrase?
“My point is, make yourself comfortable, and we can go over details about the SUV and the trip after your nap.”
“Okay.” I looked at him more closely. Jon even looked like Dad, now that his face had filled out and his hairline was receding from his broad forehead. I wouldn’t tell Jon that I saw the resemblance. I was afraid he might turn on me, and I’d lose it. It was easier to keep up the long-standing tradition we had grown up with of pretending nothing was wrong. That’s what we did as children. With Jon, I realized, I still felt like a child.
As an adult, in my relationships with Tom and others, I had always spoken the truth. And in so many ways, the truth had set me free, just like Christ had said it would. The truth was that our father dispersed his money to horses and greyhounds, begging them to run faster. But the ones he bet on never ran fast enough. He dissolved his liver by soaking it in a steady supply of gin. He disillusioned three people who were too quick to believe him every time he said this time it truly would be different. He died unexpectedly during Jon’s first day of classes at MIT. For that, I think my brother never had forgiven him.
I was in Louisiana when our father died. My mom’s brother, Uncle Burt, was the one who had told me. He came to Grand Lady’s Big House in the middle of the day and asked me to sit with him in the living room. He took off his fishing hat, held my hand, and didn’t say anything at first. I watched a big, fat tear bubble over the edge of his eyelid and squirm down his rugged cheek like a fishing worm trying to burrow back into the earth. I knew my father was gone.
Three days after we scattered my father’s ashes in the Pacific Ocean, my brother packed up the last of his belongings and left for the East Coast. My mother and I moved a few weeks later to Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains. I started my seventh-grade year with a small class of close-knit students who called me a “flatlander” and had no spare envelopes in their stacks when they passed out birthday party invitations. Books were my only friends. The highlight of the year was winning an award for being the seventh-grader who turned in the most book reports during the second semester. One hundred and two reports. It was a school record.
I begged my mother to let me return to Louisiana that summer. But she was getting married to Stan in August and said she needed my help. In the midst of her giddiness over being pursued by a financially stable x-ray technician, I was a whisper in the hallway that could only be heard if someone was curious enough to come looking for me.
But my mother never came.
“Anything else you need?” Jon asked.
I shook my head, tossing off the long-forgotten misery and giving my big brother the warmest little-sister smile I could find in my scrapbook of memories. The past was long gone. No, I didn’t need a thing.
“Hannah might,” I said. “I’ll check on her before I take a nap. She might be tired, too.”
I found the three cousins in an entertainment room watching a movie on the largest television screen I had ever seen. I was glad to see it was a video I’d watched with Hannah before.
She looked over at me when I entered the great room. I motioned for her to come to me so I could talk to her. In a low voice I asked, “Are you okay?”
“Of course.” She looked at me strangely.
“Do you feel comfortable enough staying here while I take a nap?”
“Sure.”
“Now, Hannah, the same rules apply to the TV here as they do at home. If Tiffany and Jasmine want to watch something that’s okay for them, but you know that Dad and I wouldn’t let you watch it at home, then you have to be the one to get up and find something else to do.”
“Mom, I know. It’s okay. Don’t worry. I know the rules.” Her voice elevated on the last few sentences, and I was pretty sure Tiffany and Jasmine heard what we were talking about or at least figured it out.
I stroked Hannah’s silky, blond hair and brushed a crumb of toast from her top lip.
“I’ll be down the hall in the guest room if you need me,” I whispered.
“Okay, Mom.”
I left with a glance over my shoulder. I was sure that Tiffany and Jasmine were two fine young ladies, but I felt no warmth toward them and no sense of trust. I knew that was a terrible thing for an aunt to think. They were draped over the leather couches looking like the lifeless akule fish that Sam catches in Kahana Bay and splays over the mounds of shaved ice at Saturday market in Honokowai. I wondered if I should be keeping Hannah away from those two less-than-holy mackerels.
Finding my way back to the guest room with the piped-in ocean sounds, I kicked off my sandals and lowered myself onto the bed. I instantly was enveloped in poofiness. The soft ocean sounds really did make me feel relaxed, and I fell asleep effortlessly.
The worst thing that happened that day was that I slept for almost nine hours.
The best thing that happened that day was that I slept for almost nine hours.
My body received the replenishment it needed for the long trip ahead, but I missed out on a full day with my brother and his family. That part didn’t seem like a loss to me at the time. It took many hours of thinking along many miles of desolate highways between Seattle and Howell before a simple thought whispered down the hallway of my mind. I had only one brother. And I had never been curious enough to go find him.
Late that night, after my nap and a dinner of Chinese food that was delivered to the front door, Jon led me to their five-car garage and went over the features in his customized vehicle. He kept saying, “But it’s not as big as a motor home,” and “It’s not as convenient as a motor home.” I finally took the bait and asked why he hadn’t bought a motor home instead.
He looked appalled. “To conserve gasoline, of course.”
I wanted to laugh. But I didn’t.
My brother lived in opulence yet sounded sincere when it came to doing his part to preserve the environment. I wondered if extravagantly wealthy people lived in a different sort of reality.
At least his reality included an interest in organization. The SUV was packed with necessities he, Patty, and the girls thought they would need for their drive up the East Coast and back to Seattle via Chicago. Their Eddie Bauer canvas bags fit under the shelf bed that took up the back third of the van. It looked like our not-so-brawny luggage would fit nicely beside theirs.
Jon had printed out detailed maps from one of his software programs. For my part of the trip, the directions were “suggestions” of travel routes. For his part of the trip, each day was planned down to the rest stops and the arrival time at each five-star hotel where he had made reservations. He even had information on which major highways were undergoing construction or repair and the alternate routes he could take. Between Jon’s information and all that my husband had compiled, all I would have to do was start the engine and follow their directions.
“What time should we plan to leave tomorrow?” I asked, as Jon concluded the tour of the garage.
“Our flight leaves at 7:30 in the morning, so we’re taking the limo to the airport at five. You and Ha-na are free to leave whenever you want.”
My brother’s household was a flurry of packing pandemonium until deep into the night. They burst out the door close to 5:30 with a lot of yelling and scrambling around. Hannah and I stood in the frame of the stained glass front door and waved good-bye. It felt strange to be standing there, knowing that Jon’s kingdom was at our disposal. Yet all I wanted to do was get out of there before I broke something or set off an alarm. I had the creepy feeling that his voice might come over the intercom system from some device he had invented and had taken with him to Belgium. It was all I could do not to check the vehicle for cameras or special speakers. For all I knew, a satellite might be tracking every mile of our trip.
Determining that I would not become paranoid, I asked Hannah if she was ready to leave.
She decided to shower. I decided to take my brother up on an earlier offer to pack some food and make use of the small built-in refrigerator in the SUV.
We didn’t leave until close to eight o’clock. I locked everything, using the directions Jon had left for me to set the security codes. I stored the keys inside the safe-deposit box hidden in the side of van and backed the luxury liner out of the dock, ready to launch her on her maiden voyage.
Halfway around the circular drive I stopped. “What’s wrong?” Hannah asked.
“I think we should pray,” I said.
“About our trip?”
“Yes. For our trip and for Uncle Jon and his family, too.”
“Okay,” Hannah said. “Mind if I pray first?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“Dear Lord, please be with Uncle Jon and my cousins on their trip. And all I ask for us is that we have fun. Amen.”
I prayed for all the important things Hannah had left out, like safety and protection and wisdom and direction. I think a pinch of paranoia remained in my thoughts, because I found myself praying for Jon and his family as if he could hear me and would evaluate my prayer.
It should have been clear to me then that Hannah and I had two different views of what this trip was all about. But I didn’t see it because I was nervous. Nervous about somehow damaging Jon’s super SUV or messing up the programmed direction-finding system with the blinking monitor staring at me from under the center air-conditioning vent. I was nervous about getting lost. Nervous about being run off the road by a logging truck. For all my grandiose daydreams about the freedom of the open road, I now found myself cowering in the reality that lay stretched out before us.
Jon’s computer program analyzed the route I would most likely take and printed out the following details: “Seattle to Atlanta—3,445.4 miles; 7 days, 55 minutes; 2 time zone changes.”
Such reports can dampen one’s sense of romance about an endeavor.
“Can I sit in the back and watch a DVD now?” Hannah asked when we reached the end of the street.
“No.”
“When can I watch one?”
“Later. When it’s dark, and there’s nothing to see outside the windows.”
She waited until I found my way to the freeway, and then she said, “What if I kept the headset on so the sound doesn’t bother you? Then could I watch a DVD before it’s dark?”
“No, Hannah. This trip isn’t for watching DVDs. It’s for seeing the world outside and appreciating the beauty.”
Twenty minutes later, when it was evident she was more bored than any girl her age had ever been since the beginning of road trips, Hannah pulled out a handheld video game from the drawer under the passenger’s seat.
“Tiffany brought this for her part of the trip.” Hannah held out the device like an offering in her palm. It was as if she wanted me to see how tame and harmless the little creature was. “Tiffany said I could use it any time I wanted as long as I didn’t break it or waste all the batteries.”
“I’d prefer you save it for another part of the trip when you’re looking for something to do.”
“But I’m looking for something to do now,” she said.
“Look out the window.”
“I have been looking out the window.”
“Aren’t the trees beautiful? Everything here is so green and lush, don’t you think?”
“It’s like Kipahulu,” she said, referring to the back side of Maui where the annual rainfall is four times the amount we see in Lahaina.
“They don’t have trees like this in Kipahulu,” I said.
“No, but they have a lot of green.”
She obviously isn’t impressed. Wait till we get to the snow when we drive over Mount Hood. That will get her attention.
“Mom, Jasmine gave me something.”
“She did?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know if you would let me keep it.”
“What is it?”
“A Discman. She got a new MP3, and she said I could have the Discman because she was going to throw it away.”
I was about to say, “That was nice of her,” but I wasn’t sure if Jasmine’s gesture was born of niceness or apathy born of her abundance.
“Jasmine also gave me a bunch of CDs and likes a lot of the things I like, and I don’t think any of the songs will be ones I shouldn’t listen to. So, may I at least listen to this if I can’t play video games? I don’t have anything else to do.”
“Hannah,” I said firmly, “I do not want you to spend the whole summer with your nose in a book. Do you understand me?”
“My nose in a book?” Hannah repeated.
I felt my heart do a flip.
That sounded exactly like my mother! Where did that come from?
“I’m sorry, Hannah.” I felt shaken. “It’s okay. You can listen to the music on Jasmine’s CD player.”
I could tell she was staring, waiting for me to add a final caveat before releasing her to so much freedom. But I had no such warning or condition. I felt the familiar return of a tension headache rising from the back of my neck and making its way to my shame-soaked brain.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you say ‘book’? You said I shouldn’t keep my nose in a book.”
“It’s nothing.” I summoned a smile. “I mixed up my words, that’s all.”
Hiding behind my right as a mother to be vague, I drove down I-5 with my eyes straight ahead. Hannah put on the headphones cautiously, like a scientist placing her stethoscope just right before examining a previously unknown life force.
It didn’t feel this difficult to be Hannah’s mother at home. There, all the boundaries were in place. Here, on the road, in the wild, so to speak, we had to start all over to define the parameters.
Why hadn’t I been honest and explained to her why I said she shouldn’t keep her nose in a book? When will Hannah be old enough to hear about my childhood?
This didn’t seem like the right time. My memories stayed deep inside yet played themselves out with such vividness that it seemed as if they had just happened. The memory started with a phone conversation I had with my mother when I was twelve. I had been in Louisiana for a week. She called to see how I was getting along. I told her about my new friend, Josephine, who worked at the Howell Public Library.
“Josephine introduced me to Charles Dickenson and Walter Scott,” I announced. I wanted her to know that my reading ability had skyrocketed.
“Who?” my mother had asked.
“Charles Dickenson and Walter Scott. You know, Great Expectations? Ivanhoe?”
“Oh, Dickens,” she corrected me. “Not Dickenson. You mean Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott.” Then she delivered the line I had just placed on Hannah. “I do not want you to spend the whole summer with your nose in a book. Do you understand me?”
I got the distinct impression my mother would have been pleased with me if Charles and Walter had been two living, breathing boys who were teaching me how to catch crawdads at the local fishing hole. She wanted me to “experience” nature and reminded me that, when she was growing up in Howell, she interacted with the outdoors by sketching the frogs and painting with watercolors whenever they went to the lake. Her only use for books had been to stack them high to press wildflowers on waxed paper.
I pulled out of that sharp remembrance by focusing on the magnificent trees and patches of purple and blue wildflowers that lined the freeway. Washington was a beautiful state. Drawing in a deep breath, I released it slowly and told myself to relax and to stop being so paranoid and nervous. I wasn’t my mother. Just because I slipped and made a statement similar to one she had made to me so many years ago didn’t mean that I was about to morph into her.
Hannah and I were the next generation. All things were new. Weren’t they?
As we entered Oregon, Mount Hood could easily be seen out my side window.
“Look, Hannah. Isn’t that incredible?”
In the distance, clear blue sky formed the backdrop for the pyramid-shaped mountain covered in dazzling snow. Flowing under the elevated freeway was the mighty Columbia River, reflecting the deep blue of the sky. A speckling of white sailboats raced across the wide waterway, and several jet skiers headed for an island thick with towering evergreens that was in the middle of the river.
“What a view! Isn’t this gorgeous?”
Hannah nodded.
“We’re in another state now,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be fun if we had to use passports so we could get a stamp showing each state we’ve been through? I think Washington slipped under our tires too quickly. We have to stop and see more of the countryside the rest of this trip.”
Hannah nodded.
“Are you listening to what I’m saying?”
She nodded again.
“Hannah.” I raised my voice. “Hannah!”
“What?” She pulled out one of the earbuds.
“We’re in Oregon.”
“Oh.”
“Did you hear anything I was saying?”
“Some of it.”
“Why don’t you put away the music for a while? We need to stop for gas.”