My pace was slowed by the storm, and by the time I reached the town of Fruitland, I was cold and drenched. I stopped at a gas mart called Casey’s for supplies, then walked to the nearby Jer’s Restaurant for lunch.
A broad, surly-looking woman glanced up from the counter. “You’re all wet,” she said.
I wasn’t sure if she was annoyed that I was dripping on her floor or if she just had a penchant for stating the obvious. “I’ve heard that before,” I said.
She just glared at me.
After a moment I said, “It’s raining.”
“It’s going to get worse,” she said. “We’ve got a severe weather warning. Maybe even tornadoes.”
“Tornadoes?”
She nodded.
Outside of The Wizard of Oz and the Weather Channel, I had never seen a tornado. It was one experience I didn’t care if I missed. “Is there anyplace in town to stay?”
“Closest hotel is a couple miles ahead in Jackson.”
I took off my hat and scratched my head. “A couple of miles, huh?”
“You want something to eat?” she asked sternly.
“Yes.”
“Pick a table,” she said.
I looked around. The restaurant was empty except for a truck driver in a corner booth who was nursing a cola and playing a video game on his cell phone.
I sat down at a booth on the opposite side of the diner, then lay my pack on the chair next to me and put my hat on top of it. When Miss Congeniality returned, I ordered fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy.
In spite of the woman’s warning of worsening weather, I ate slowly, hoping the rain might ease up a little. As predicted, it got worse. I ordered a piece of peach pie to buy me more time in the shelter, then, finally accepting my inevitable drenching, paid my bill, put on my hat and walked out into the storm, hoping for better hospitality from the next town. Or the tornado.
Although Jackson was just two miles from Fruitland, in weather conditions like these, it seemed much farther. At one point my hat blew off and I chased it for several minutes.
As I neared the town, the rain came down harder. The sky had turned black, lit with what seemed an increasing frequency of lightning strikes—sometimes even simultaneous with the thunder. It occurred to me that even though I hadn’t seen a funnel cloud, this was what tornado weather looked like on the Weather Channel.
As I crossed the Jackson city line, the rain suddenly turned to hail, bouncing off me and the street like water on a hot griddle. Some of the hail was nearly golf-ball-sized and it hurt. Lifting my pack over my head, I made a fifty-yard dash for cover beneath a highway overpass.
When I reached the shelter of the bridge, my heart was pounding heavily from my sprint, and I was as wet as if I had fallen into a lake. Both sides of the overpass were opaque with white sheets of hail. I lay my pack on the ground, then sat down on the curb next to the highway to rest. That’s when I heard the sirens.
CHAPTER
Twenty
Is it possible for those on the other side to intervene on our behalf? Millions of dollars have been spent on this very hope.
Alan Christoffersen’s diary
Tornadoes are rare in both Los Angeles and Seattle—there has never, in the recorded history of either city, been a death caused by one—so, not surprisingly, I had never heard a tornado siren before.
Outside of the bridge there was no shelter in sight. I grabbed my pack and had started to climb up a weeded incline so I could hide under the bottom of the bridge when a navy-blue Nissan Sentra braked below me and honked its horn. The car’s passenger window rolled down and I heard a young woman shout, “Get in.”
I slid down the embankment, threw my pack in the car’s back seat, then opened the front door. The driver was maybe five years younger than me, pretty, with full lips and long, bright red hair, windblown around her face. She had an exotic look, almost feline.
She smiled at me, and her hazel green eyes were bright and kind. I pulled the door shut behind me as she reached forward and turned off the radio, leaving only the sound of my heavy breathing and the wind battering her car.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m drenched.”
She smiled at me. “And I’m Paige.”
I reached over, taking her hand. “My name is Alan.”
“Put your seatbelt on, Alan,” she said. “We better get out of here.”
As I fastened my belt, she checked her mirror, then pulled out onto the road. As soon as we came out from under the bridge, the sound of the storm exploded. The hail beat against her car like a snare drum.
“That’s going to be an insurance claim,” she shouted over the noise. She turned to me. “You’re crazy being out in this storm. What are you, an extreme hiker? Didn’t you hear the sirens?”
“I didn’t have a lot of options,” I said. “I thought the overpass would be safe.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You’d probably be safer low to the ground. The higher up you are the more exposed you are to flying debris.”
There was a loud thunderclap and she jumped a little.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“There’s a hotel just up ahead. We can stay there until this blows over.”
The hail lessened, but not the rain, and the car’s wipers whipped violently—though mostly ineffectually—against the downpour. A quarter-mile ahead of us we finally saw the hotel: Drury Inn & Suites. The front of the building was crowded with cars and we parked as close to the entrance as we could.
Paige grabbed a small travel bag from the back seat. “Ready?”
“Let’s go.”
We simultaneously jumped out of her car. I grabbed my pack from the back seat as she ran for the hotel. She held the door for me as I entered.
Once we were both inside she asked, “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I said, panting. “Just wet.”
“You’re definitely wet.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I was born wet.”
She laughed.
The hotel’s lobby was crowded with the storm’s refugees, probably more than a hundred people in all, surrounded by their pets and belongings and huddled together in small clans. I quickly surmised that most of the people weren’t hotel guests.
There was a television on in the dining area off the lobby, and a group of men were sitting around it at tables, drinking coffee and, to my surprise, watching football instead of the weather.
Paige and I worked our way through a labyrinth of people to a small corner of the room that no one had yet claimed. I took off my pack and we both sat on the floor. Paige took off her coat, then pulled her long hair back from her face.
“How long were you out there?” she asked.
“A few hours. I walked from the last town.”
“No wonder you’re so wet,” she said. “Where are you from?”
“Seattle. We don’t do tornadoes.”
She took a brush out of her travel bag and began brushing her hair. “It’s Alan, right?”
“Yes. And you’re Paige.”
“Right. Where are you headed?”
“Key West, Florida.”
“All the way from Seattle?”
“That’s the plan,” I said.
“That’s amazing. The farthest I’ve ever walked at one time was ten miles for a breast cancer fundraiser.”
A cardboard box crashed loudly against the window next to us and Paige screamed, then laughed at herself. “Sorry, I’m just skittish.”
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“I was born in St. Louis. That’s where I live now.”
“What brings you down here?”
“I’m headed to Memphis to see my grandma. I was hoping to make it by tonight, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to clear up anytime soon.”
“I was planning on walking to Cape Girardeau by evening,” I said. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Not likely,” Paige
said.
“I wonder if the hotel has any vacancies,” I said. “I think I’ll check.”
I got up and walked to the hotel’s front desk. The woman behind the counter was listening to the weather report on the radio, and I could hear a hysterical caller screaming over the sound of the wind that a semi had been blown over. The clerk glanced up at me as I approached. “May I help you?”
“Do you have any rooms?”
“We have two left,” she said. “They’re both nonsmoking, first-floor rooms with two queen beds.”
“I’ll take one,” I said. I gave her my credit card and driver’s license.
“How many room keys do you need?”
I glanced over at Paige, wondering if she trusted me enough to stay with me. “Two,” I said.
She slid two plastic cards through her encoder, then handed them to me with my credit card. “There you go. It sounds as if the worst of the storm is over, but if another tornado touches down, the safest place to be will be in the hallway outside your room.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I walked back over to Paige and lifted my pack. “I’ve got a room. It’s got two beds. You’re welcome to hang out with me in there.”
“That would be nice. Thank you.”
We gathered our things and walked to the room, which was only halfway down the hall off the lobby. The window’s curtain was drawn back and rain pelted the glass, coagulating in long streams of runoff.
I threw my hat on the TV cabinet, lay my pack on the floor near the corner, then sat at the foot of the bed and took off my shoes. “How long do these things usually take to pass?”
Paige ran her hand down the length of her bed. “You never know. It’ll probably die down in the night.” She pulled back the covers and sat down on the bed to take off her shoes.
“You’re from St. Louis?” I asked.
“Mostly,” she said. “I live there now.”
“What do you do?”
“I work for a hospice company.”
“Hospice? You help people . . .”
“. . . Die,” she said. “I know, it sounds sad.”
“What’s that like?”
“The worst part is that just about the time you start caring for someone you lose them.”
“That sounds awful.”
“In a way it is. But it’s also really rewarding. I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life right now.”
She lay back on the bed, her long red hair splayed out over her pillow.
“Do you want to watch TV?” I asked.
“Whatever you want,” she replied.
“I was asking for you. I’m going to take a shower and get into some dry clothes.”
“Oh. Sure,” she said.
“Do you need to use the bathroom first?” I asked.
“No. I’m good.”
I took some clean clothes out of my pack, then tossed Paige the TV remote and went inside the bathroom. I stayed in the hot water until the bathroom mirror was dripping with condensation. When I came back out, Paige was watching the weather on a local station.
“How is it?” I asked.
“It’s looking better.” She smiled at me. “You look like you feel a lot better.”
“Much,” I said. “Any news on the storm?”
“It looks like the tornadoes are gone. It’s supposed to clear up by morning.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
As I sat down on the bed, she turned off the television. “Tell me about your walk,” she said.
“What do you want to know?”
“What states have you been through?”
“I started in Washington, walked through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, then Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and here I am. Six more states to go.”
“You’ve walked nonstop?”
“Mostly. I stopped twice, but not by choice. Once was in Spokane when I was mugged.”
She blanched. “You were mugged?”
“A gang attacked me. I was stabbed three times.”
She stared at me with wide eyes. “Really?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Want to see the scars?”
She nodded and I lifted my shirt.
She gasped. “Oh, my.”
“Another inch higher and I probably wouldn’t be here.”
“Wow,” she said. “I didn’t realize Spokane was such a tough place.”
I laughed. “It’s not. But there’s crime everywhere and when you’re on the street you’re at risk. Gangs, tornadoes . . . redheads.”
She smiled. “If it wasn’t for a redhead, you might still be under that bridge. Like a troll.”
I laughed. “I’m in your debt.”
“It’s my pleasure. I almost didn’t see you. I think I was inspired.”
“What do you mean?”
“Every morning when I pray, I ask God to let me help one of His children. As I was approaching the underpass, I had a strong feeling that I needed to slow down. When I looked up, there you were.”
“You pray for that every day?” I asked.
“Almost,” she said. “It’s amazing the opportunities that have come to me since I started doing that. Most of the time it’s someone I’m working with in hospice. Sometimes I’ll get these flashes of insight into their lives.”
“You should be sainted.”
“I was thinking the exact same thing,” she laughed, holding her hands open around her face. “St. Paige.”
I couldn’t help but think how cute she looked.
“You said you stopped twice on your walk.”
“The second time was in St. Louis. I found out I had a brain tumor after I passed out just outside the city.”
“Is that why you have that scar?” she asked, looking at my head.
I nodded. “I was taken to the hospital in St. Louis, then ended up flying home to Pasadena for treatment.”
“I thought you said you lived in Seattle.”
“I did,” I said. “But I left when my wife died.”
She frowned. “I’m so sorry. Was she ill?”
“No. She died from complications after a horse-riding accident.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “Does that have something to do with why you’re walking?”
“It’s the reason I’m walking.”
She shook her head slowly. “It’s hard losing a loved one.”
“You experience it all the time,” I said.
“No, I see death,” she said softly. “But it’s not the same as losing family.”
“You’ve lost someone close?” I asked.
She didn’t have to answer. I could see in her eyes that she had.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I want to tell you. I think you might be one of the few people who would understand.” She leaned forward on the edge of the bed. “When I was sixteen, my parents decided to take a trip to Denver. I was the oldest, I had a sister who was just a year younger than me and two little brothers. I had cheerleading camp so I couldn’t go with them.
“The morning they left, my mother was stressed about leaving me alone and kept nagging me about keeping the house clean while they were gone and ‘no parties’ and ‘no boys’ and all the things parents say to irresponsible teenagers. I finally yelled at her and said, ‘All right, you’re making me crazy. Just get out of here! Just go already!’ ” Paige frowned. “I’ll never forget the hurt in her eyes. She kissed me and told me she loved me, then got up and walked out of my room. I felt so embarrassed for having behaved badly that I didn’t even go out to see them off. I just watched from the window.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “It was the last time I saw my family.
“My father had just gotten his pilot’s license, so he wanted to fly the family to Colorado. On the flight home it was foggy. He got disoriented and crashed into a mountain. Everyone was killed.
“I was taken in by my grandmother, but it was ha
rd. I was a mess. I was grieving and had survivor’s guilt. I became really self-destructive. I changed my friends and started drinking. Then I started smoking pot and taking painkillers. I became promiscuous, which made me hate myself even more.
“My grandmother tried to help, but I was too much for her. I told her that she wasn’t my mother and to just keep out of my life or I’d move in with my boyfriend. My boyfriend was a worse train wreck than I was. He got me most of my drugs.
“Around that time I developed an eating disorder. I got down to eighty-four pounds. I’m pretty sure that I was trying to kill myself.
“One night I was at a party and one of the boys had brought some heroin. The guy didn’t really know anything about the drug, he was just acting cool and handing it out.
“As usual, I was up for anything. My best friend Kylee and I tried it. We took what the kid gave us, which was way too much, especially for our first time. I passed out.
“When I woke, I was in the back of an ambulance throwing up into a bucket. I was so drenched with sweat I thought I had fallen into a swimming pool. I can’t describe the pain.” She shook her head. “It was . . . horrendous.
“They stabilized me at the hospital. The next morning I started asking about Kylee. It took a while to find someone who knew anything about her, but I eventually found out. She’d died before the paramedics got there.
“Two days later my grandmother came and picked me up. She was so upset that she didn’t say a word to me the whole way home. But as soon as we were inside, she said, ‘When are you going to stop this insanity?’
“I said, ‘I almost just died.’
“She said, ‘Yes, I know.’
“Then I said, ‘My family died.’
“She said, ‘And you think that gives you a pass to stop living? My daughter died! And now I’m watching my granddaughter kill herself. Should I just give up on life like you did? Should I be just like you?’
“I told her that I hated her, then I broke down sobbing and ran to my room and locked the door.
“That night I had a very intense dream. I was lying in bed when I suddenly realized that my mother was sitting at the foot of my bed. She looked very sad. I was scared, but I was also so glad to see her. I said ‘Mom!’ She looked into my eyes and even though she didn’t speak, I could hear what she was thinking. She said, ‘You are loved, Paige.’