Chapter 16

Elizabeth opened her eyes to see Luke sitting there, in the same chair that Gabe had been sitting in the previous night. Her son, though, was a little boy again, perhaps five, and he was in his pj’s. His eyes were red and inflamed, as if he’d been crying.

Where did you go? he implored.
I was right here.
I didn’t see you. I was afraid.
I’m sorry, sweetheart.
Don’t leave me again.
I won’t, sweetie. I promise.
Will you read me a story?
Of course. Do you want the one about the pig?

He got down off the chair and came running over and jumped into bed with Elizabeth. As he crawled into her arms, she could smell the warm, slightly sour fragrance of his scalp, feel the softness of the skin along his cheek. She began reading the book.

“ . . . for a pig is just downright supposed to be big.”

* * *

In the shower the next morning, she thought about both conversations she’d had the previous evening. How Gabe had said his daughter had died. And how Zack had known all along about her affair. She’d thought about asking Zack how he’d learned about it or when, but those, she realized, were logistical questions and ultimately insignificant. Here she had been driving herself crazy with guilt and all the while he knew. Did you love him? Zack had asked.

After getting dressed, she headed over to Gabe’s room. The morning was sunny with long shadows stretching across the flat earth. Gabe opened the door, rubbing his eyes, dressed only in his white BVDs. His naked chest was matted with gray hair and his arms and shoulders were muscular. His skinny legs were white as skin that had been covered with a bandage.

“Jesus,” he said, squinting at her as if he’d just been released from solitary confinement. “Why so early?”

“It’s almost eight. You okay?”

He looked hung over, his mouth slung open. “My alarm didn’t go off.”

“I’ll be in the truck,” she said.

“All right. Gimme ten.”

In the motel lobby she paid the bill and bought a pack of cigarettes from the vending machine, then headed out to the truck. . . .She passed the time smoking and thinking about what Gabe had told her the night before. She felt sorry for him. He’d lost both his daughter and his wife. Maybe she would lose both as well. Perhaps Zack was packing his things at that very moment.

After a while she saw Gabe approaching the truck.

“You okay to drive?” she asked as he climbed in.

“Don’t worry about me.”

He pulled out of the motel, and they headed toward the highway. It was already getting hot, the air just above the asphalt wavering and bending in the heat. She was grateful for the sunglasses. They rode through Southwestern Arkansas, over lethargic, mud-brown rivers where Elizabeth imagined huge catfish floating in the depths. They passed long stretches of pine forests and open fields, some with cattle or horses grazing, others with oil derricks seesawing up and down, metal rocking horses. Every once in a while, Elizabeth glanced over at Gabe. It seemed obvious to her that after their conversation the previous night he’d gone back to his room and tied one on. She couldn’t stop thinking about her conversation with Zack the previous night. I don’t know, he’d said. For some reason she pictured the soft flesh between Zack’s thumb and forefinger. When they used to hold hands, say if they were at the movies or standing in line somewhere, she had liked to stroke that part of his hand. It used to feel so reassuring.

Mid-morning, Gabe pulled off the highway for gas and turned into the first convenience store they came upon.

“I’m gonna get something to eat,” he said. “You want anything?”

“Just a coffee,” she replied.

He headed into the convenience store. Gabe returned in a moment with two coffees and a breakfast burrito.

“You look tired,” she said to him.

“I guess I had one too many last night.”

“Was that on account of our conversation?”

“What did we talk about?” he asked, casting a blank look her way. She couldn’t tell whether he was kidding or really couldn’t remember.

“Your wife and daughter.”

“Ex-wife,” he corrected.

“Does she know you still love her?”

“What’s done is done. Abby’s happy now. And I’m happy for her.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah. I am actually.” Gabe glanced over at her. “Stu’s a back-stabbing son of a bitch, but he’s been decent with Abby and Jo. He’s been there for them.”

Elizabeth wondered if she would have the generosity to say that if Zack left her for another woman. She didn’t think she could be so magnanimous.

“By the way, I told my husband last night,” she said.

“You told him what?”

“About the affair.”

Gabe looked over at her and wagged his head. “And how did that work out?”

She shrugged. “The funny thing is he said he already knew about it.”

“No shit? Why didn’t he say anything before?”

“I don’t know.”

He took a sip of his coffee. “So what’s going to happen now?”

She pursed her lips and looked out the window. “I don’t know.”

“You want things to work out with him?”

“Of course. I love him.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Yes. But it’s up to him.”

“Why is it up to him?”

“Because I’m the one who cheated.”

* * *

They drove hard through the rolling hills of western Arkansas, not even stopping for lunch; they reached Texarkana and the border of Texas by late afternoon. The heat was oppressive, heavy and damp, palpable as a sauna. His truck had air-conditioning but he preferred to drive with the windows down, said AC stuffed up his nose. This part of Texas surprised her. It was greener and more fertile than she’d imagined, with broad grasslands bisected by small creeks along which grew groves of cottonwoods and cedars.

Near dusk Gabe asked, “What do you say we call it a day?”

“Fine with me.”

They got rooms at a Ramada Inn, a significant upgrade over the previous night’s Motel Six. The bathroom was clean and the bed, a king, was firm and comfortable, and there were no cigarette burns on the nightstand either. They agreed to have a little time to get cleaned up and then to meet at seven for dinner. When Gabe showed up at her door an hour later, he surprised her. He was wearing a new shirt, a white button-down oxford matched with a stiff new pair of jeans. He wasn’t wearing his baseball cap either or his greasy Stu jacket, and his hair was freshly washed and combed. She thought she smelled something like aftershave, too.

“Boy, look at you,” she said.

“The other shirt was getting a little ripe,” he joked. “So I went out and bought a couple of things. You ready?”

They decided to save time and have dinner at the hotel restaurant. The place was dimly lit with candles in small red jars on each table and a dance floor over at one end where no one was dancing. There was piped in music from the eighties, Prince and Madonna and Duran Duran. It wasn’t very busy, just a handful of men bellied up to the bar, middle-aged guys in jeans and big straw cowboy hats. A busty woman with a smoker’s laugh had drawn several of them like flies to flypaper. At the end of the bar, a guy in a business suit was talking to the bartender, a young blonde woman. Gabe and Elizabeth sat at a booth. The bartender, who also doubled as waitress, came over and gave them menus and took their drink orders. She was in her mid-thirties, with hair that she wore in a long braid that fell to her waist.

Gabe ordered the steak with a Jack and Coke, while Elizabeth had a salad and iced tea.

“How long have you been on the wagon?”

“A few weeks,” she replied, though it seemed like months.

“Been there, done that. First couple of weeks are the hardest part.”

When the bartender returned with their drinks, Elizabeth watched as Gabe knocked down his Jack and Coke in one motion, without coming up for air.

“After last night, maybe you ought to go a little easy on that.”

“I’m not on the clock now,” he explained. “And I’m not on that wagon either.”

His phone rang then.

“Hi, sweetcakes,” he said, his face suddenly brightening. My daughter, he mouthed the words to Elizabeth and pointed at the phone. “What’s going on, sweetie? No, I don’t have any plans for next summer. Amy? Yeah, I remember her. She’s the fat one. You’re right, I shouldn’t have said that,” he said, winking at Elizabeth. “I don’t see why not. You’ll have to work it out with her parents. But it’s fine by me if you want to have her come and stay. Make sure you run it by your mother, too.” There was a pause, then Gabe made a face. “Yes, you have to. . . Because she’s the boss. I know she bugs you. But she’s still your mother and you have to do what she says. No, you can’t come and live with me. We’ve been over this before. Why? Because you can’t, that’s why. When you’re older, maybe.” He glanced over at Elizabeth and rolled his eyes, then smiled. Finally he said, “Sure thing. You take care, honey. Love ya.”

When he got off the phone, he said, “Jo wants to bring a friend for next summer. I don’t blame her. There’s not a whole lot to do in town. When she was younger it was easy. I’d take her fishing. Or she’d help me in the shop. She knows her way around cars, that kid. Now she’s older though, it’s harder to keep her entertained.”

“She wants to see her dad.”

“I think she just wants to get away from her mother,” Gabe said.

“They having problems?”

“Just the usual teenage stuff. Her mother won’t let her wear a certain skirt to school. That sort of deal.”

“I fought with my mother all the time. It was my dad I adored.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as Jo adoring me. But we get along pretty well.”

When the waitress brought their food over, Gabe ordered another Jack and Coke.

“You sure you don’t want a drink?” he said to Elizabeth.

“You wouldn’t make a very good sponsor.”

They dug into their food. Elizabeth found herself famished.

“Has there been anybody in your life since the divorce?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve done the online dating thing. There was one gal I liked a lot. Carla.”

“What happened?”

“She was,” he explained, twirling his fork near his temple, “crazy as a bedbug.”

“Men always say that.”

“But this one was certifiable. Crazy Carla, I called her.” He took a sip of his drink.

During dinner, Gabe had several more Jack and Cokes. Elizabeth found herself letting her guard down, talking and laughing easily with him, as if they were long-time friends instead of having met just two days before. The conversation centered mostly on his life. He told her funny stories about his dating experiences which Elizabeth laughed at. He related how he and Crazy Carla once got into a fight and she ended up locking him out of her house without his clothes or keys or cell phone, and he had to walk home naked several miles.

“I didn’t have a stitch on. I’m talking my birthday suit. No underwear, shoes. Nothing. And it was January, too. Christ, I almost froze my balls off.”

He talked some more about his daughters, too.

“That’s Jo,” he said handing Elizabeth a picture of his daughter on his cell phone. “That’s her eighth-grade semi-formal.”

“Boy, she’s cute,” Elizabeth offered.

“Luckily, they both got their looks from their mother. And their talent. Abby used to be a dancer in high school. She always had the two of them taking dance and voice lessons. Entered them into theater productions. Kel could sing like an angel.” He took the phone back from Elizabeth and searched on it until he came to what he wanted. “That’s Kelly in ninth grade. She played Laurey in Oklahoma,” he said, handing the phone back to Elizabeth.

“She’s gorgeous.”

“Yeah, she was. Since she was a little girl, she was always talking about how she was going to head out to Hollywood. Become a movie star. That was her dream.”

“How old was she when she died?”

“Seventeen. She’d have been twenty-two now.”

“What Luke would have been.” Elizabeth took her phone out, scrolled through until she got to a picture of Luke. “That’s him there,” she said, handing Gabe her phone.

“He’s a good-looking boy. Must’ve had all the girls after him.”

Elizabeth thought of what TJ had told her. “Actually, he had only one girlfriend growing up.”

“Sounds like me. I married the first girl I slept with,” he said with a laugh. “What did your boy want to be?”

Though it was the most ordinary of questions, it still took Elizabeth a little by surprise.

“I don’t really know. When he was younger he talked about going to law school. Then again, that was mostly me trying to talk him into law school. What he ended up majoring in was theology.”

“And I thought art was impractical. What the hell, was he going to be a preacher?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Was your family very religious?”

“Not really. My father was an old-school Irish Catholic. He used to take us to church when we were little. I don’t go much any more though. In fact, not at all.”

“So where did your son get his interest then?”

“Probably his father. Luke was always an introspective sort of kid.”

“What was he doing on this trip?” Gabe asked.

“He told us he was visiting friends in San Francisco. And out of the blue I get a call from the New Mexico police saying he’d been in an accident.”

“Couldn’t the cops tell you anything more?”

She let out a high-pitched laugh. “They don’t know their ass from their elbow. At first they said Luke had his seat belt on and then they said he didn’t. They couldn’t find his phone and when they finally did it’d been damaged beyond repair. I couldn’t get any data off of it. Plus, I had asked several times about Luke’s diary.”

“His diary?”

“I’m pretty sure my son had his diary with him on the trip.”

“And they couldn’t find it?”

“I don’t think they even looked.”

“So that’s why you’re following his trail? To find out what he was up to.”

“Something like that. But I also just want to see where he died.”

“Why? Is it some kind of closure thing for you?”

“I suppose,” replied Elizabeth, wiping the sweat off her glass. “Mostly I just want to offer a remembrance to Luke.”

Gabe had two more Jack and Cokes and then for a nightcap a single shot of JD before they called it a night. He was weaving a little, unsteady as they headed up to their rooms. Once, she had to catch his elbow to keep him from stumbling up the stairs.

“You all right?” she asked.

“I’m just fuckin’ great,” he said.

When they reached her room, he said, “It was nice talking to you.”

“Same here.”

They stood there awkwardly for a moment. Finally Elizabeth stuck out her hand and said, “Well, goodnight, Gabe.”

Instead of shaking her hand, he reached out and put his arms around her and hugged her.

“Thanks, Elizabeth.”

“For what?”

“For listening to me.”

“You’re welcome.”

That night as she lay in a tub of hot water, she heard, coming softly from the next room, a guitar being strummed. Gabe, she thought. She couldn’t make out what he was playing but it was something unhurried and soulful. She lay there until the water started to get cold and then she added more hot. She thought of her conversation with Gabe, about what Luke had wanted to be in life. When her son was little he’d had the usual sort of career aspirations. Because of his interest in planes he’d wanted to be a pilot for the longest time, then a musician, and for a while he’d talked about being a lawyer, but again, that was mostly her influence. In college though, Elizabeth could never really say he had a passion for any vocation. When they talked about it he was vague, noncommittal. She could recall once at the dinner table with Zack and Luke, discussing what he was going to do, what he was going to be.

“I don’t know,” Luke had said.

“Well you need to start thinking about it!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

“I’ll probably just go to grad school.”

“Going to grad school isn’t a career, Luke,” she said.

“Don’t worry. You won’t have to pay for it.”

“It’s not that.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

As she lay there she thought about that conversation she’d had with Sam Rosello, Luke’s former roommate at college. How he’d said Luke was acting strange. Finally, she reached over the side of the tub and from her pants pocket extracted her cell phone. She got Sam’s number and called.

“Hi, Sam. This is Elizabeth Gerlacher.” When it seemed as if he didn’t recognize the name, she added, “Luke’s mom.”

“Oh, yeah. Hi.”

They made awkward small-talk for a while. Sam, it turned out, was living in Vermont and, not surprisingly, working as a ski instructor.

“When we spoke that other time, you said Luke was acting weird.”

“Yeah. Sort of.”

“Can you tell anything else, Sam?”

“He got all born-again on us.”

“Born-again?”

“Super religious. He was always hanging out with Father Jerome. Helping him over at the abbey.”

“You don’t like Father Jerome?”

“No, it’s not that. He’s a good guy and everything. It’s just after a while, Luke started wearing that crucifix. Acting different.”

“Did he ever talk you about why he did that?”

“I don’t know. I guess he was into all that stuff.”

After Elizabeth hung up she thought of what Sam had told her. How Luke was born-again into all that religious stuff. How had she not seen that in him? Had he purposely gone out of his way to conceal it from Zack and her? And what need did it fill for her son? Was it something women couldn’t provide for him? His friends? His own parents?