Page 80 of Stowaway Whirlwind
“Yeah. ‘Night, husband,” she says breathily. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, wife.” I kiss the back of her head, the happiest, luckiest trucker, man, husband, and father in the entire world.
Chapter 28
Goldie
I’m not sure how I feel as Davis holds my hand from the driver’s seat in the Explorer. Lily, who just turned one year old, is buckled into the back seat, babbling while the baby in my belly does somersaults. The desert no longer feels like home, and I wonder if it ever did as we travel the dusty roads beneath the high sun.
With the baby due soon, we’re taking a last-minutebabymoonroad trip so I can show Davis and Lily where I grew up and visit Aunt Lydia’s grave. Although we split the drive to Nevada into three days to give Lily a break from her car seat and to see the attractions along the way, we decided against hiring anyone to come with us since this isn’t so much a romantic vacation as it is a final goodbye.
As soon as we hit the state line between Arizona and Nevada, what’s been building strikes me—unease. I feel uneasy being so far from home. Myrealhome among the pines, magnolias, and oaks. So far from the humidity, cicadas, open fields, and dark two-lane roads. From my mom and sister and the rest of our family and friends a thousand miles away.
After a short, much-needed nap at the hotel Davis booked, we change and head to the cemetery, passing abandonedbuildings pockmarked by an assortment of adult video stores, strip clubs, and chain restaurants in this part of town. Davis helps me sit on my knees in the scraggly grass next to Aunt Lydia’s grave, holding Lily on my lap. I lay the bouquet of a half-dozen white calla lily stems beneath her plain gray headstone etched with her name and birth and death dates. I break a little seeing that, considering how colorful she was in life.
I never met Aunt Lydia’s husband, Barney, who took Aunt Lydia with him back to his home state of Nevada after he was medically discharged from the U.S. Army a year after joining the service. He passed before I was born, and the only thing that makes it bearable to leave her here is the fact that she’s resting next to him—the love of her life. It’s why she chose never to remarry or have kids. I understand her choice now, more than ever, after marrying Davis—mylove of my life.
My chin quivers as tears slip down my cheeks. “Meet your great-great-aunt Lydia, Lily.” Lily claps and babbles out long sounds beneath the pink ball cap I keep placing back on her head to shield her sensitive skin from the harsh sun in the cloudless sky.
To Aunt Lydia, hoping she can hear me from wherever she is, I say, “You would have loved her so much. So so much. She takes after you, you know?” I laugh and wipe away my tears, glad I chose not to wear mascara. “She may not be able to speak yet, but I already know she’s going to be a talker, just like you,” I tease before choking out, “I miss you.”
Davis sits cross-legged on the ground and hauls us on his lap, holding us until my tears finally slow. He rubs my back and lifts his ball cap to kiss my temple. I’m sure his legs have fallen asleep beneath me, but he makes no sounds of complaint or urges me to get up until I’m ready.
I tip my head back after we finally stand and dust off the back of our jeans. “Aunt Lydia would have loved you, too…after giving you a blistering lecture about your high-handedness.”
Davis laughs softly. “With the way she loved and raised you as her own…I know I would have loved her, too.”
He takes Lily, walking her around the cemetery so I can have a few minutes alone with Aunt Lydia. I close my eyes and draw up my favorite, most treasured memories of her, determined to write them down when I get home so that I’ll never forget them in case I’m lucky enough to live as long as she did.
Lunch afterward at a small Vietnamese restaurant is a somber affair, but as the day progresses and I show Davis and Lily around town, I feel lighter, knowing that the past is precisely that—in the past. My whole future is ahead of me now, with Davis and our growing family at my side.
For dinner, we stop in at the Italian grill where I had last worked before leaving for Texas, and I introduce Davis to the few remaining servers I know. Teagan—a single mother, two years older than me, with three kids—touches my arm and tells me she’s happy I got out. Not that I got married or started a family, but gotout. I don’t know her situation, but I have the overwhelming impulse to tell her to come with us. That we’ll find room, somehow, in the Explorer for her and her kids, but she’s drifted off before I get the first word out.
Davis passes me an unused napkin across the square tabletop near the wide front window with a view of several boarded-up shops, and I quickly jot down my phone number with a pen I pull from the diaper bag while Davis pays our bill. I spot Teagan heading toward the dim back hallway, and I hurry to catch up to her, careful as I swerve around the other half-empty tables.
Just before Teagan pushes inside the manager’s office, the white door scuffed and dirty around the flaky gold knob, I tap on her shoulder. “Here.” I stick out the napkin.
She looks down at it, combing back a few loose strands of straight black hair behind her ear, letting my hand hover between us. “What’s that?”
“My phone number.”
When she finally looks up, she gives me a faint smile on her round face that’s gone the next second. “It’s ok. You don’t have to pretend we’re friends just to be nice.”
I step closer, pick up her hand, and close her fist around the napkin. “But we can be if you want to.”
She sighs and drops her hand to push the napkin into the back pocket of her black work pants. “Are you planning on coming back again, friend?” she asks without sarcasm, more resigned than anything else.
“No…but if you find yourself in Texas…”
She snorts softly. “Like I can afford to travel to Texas.”
Another step closer. “If you want to getout, too, call me. I’m serious. Davis works for a trucking company that has truckers hauling all over the country. You say the word, and we’ll find someone passing through to get you and your kids out safely.”
Teagan’s lips part. “With three kids, that’s a big ask.”
I shake my head. “Not for us, it’s not.”
She shifts on her black non-slip sneakers, her brows dipped as if she’s seriously contemplating the offer. “What would I do for work once I get there?”
