Miles to Go (9 page)

“It was okay,” she said softly, then asked, “How was yours?”

“Good,” I said.

She nodded. “I picked up a rotisserie chicken on the way home. Do you like stuffing? I have Stove Top.”

“I love stuffing,” I said, happy that she was in a better mood than she was the last time I’d seen her.

While she cooked the stuffing, I set the table and filled our glasses with water. A few minutes later we sat down to eat.

“I’m sorry I was so moody last night,” she said. “I sometimes get that way when my sugars are off.”

“No problem,” I said.

“I just didn’t want you to think I was trying to push you out. I’m really glad you’re here.”

“I didn’t take it that way,” I said. “And I’m glad I’m here too.”

She looked relieved. “So, what did you do today?”

“I got caught up in my journal,” I said. “And I watched Judge Judy. That woman is hardcore.”

Angel grinned. “That’s probably why she’s so popular. Did you walk?”

“I made it to the edge of the yard and back.”

“Congratulations. You’re making real progress.”

“I’ve come a long way since that first walk to the bathroom.” I pulled some chicken from the breast with my fork. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, when does Spokane get its first snow?”

“I haven’t been through a winter here since I was a kid, but I think that they usually have snow by the middle of November.”

“My goal is to make it around the block before the snow flies.”

Angel was cutting meat from the chicken’s breast and said without looking up, “You’ll make it. You’re doing great.”

I took another bite. “Do you have a neighbor named Nicole?”

Angel abruptly looked up. “Why?”

“A woman came by this afternoon looking for someone named Nicole.”

“What woman?”

“Just some woman.”

“What did she look like?”

“She was probably just a little older than us. She was nicely dressed and had long red hair.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her that Nicole didn’t live here.”

Angel looked at me for a moment, then went back to her meal nearly as abruptly as she had stopped eating. “No, there’s no one here with that name. Would you like some more stuffing?”

I looked at her quizzically, then handed her my plate. “Sure.”

After dinner I convinced Angel to let me help her with the dishes after which she made popcorn and we went out to watch our movie.
City Lights
hadn’t arrived yet, so we jumped up to number seventy-five,
Dances with Wolves
, directed by and starring Kevin Costner.

I had seen the movie before—twice, I think—but it had been more than a decade.

McKale and I had watched it together. I remember that she cried at the end, which wasn’t all that surprising since she cried at Hallmark card commercials.

Later that year the movie won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Much of the film was shot in South Dakota and Wyoming, two of the states I would pass through when I was walking again.

Dances with Wolves
is one of the longer movies on the top hundred list, nearly four hours in length, and Angel fell asleep long before it ended. As the credits rolled up the screen, I leaned forward and gently shook her. “Hey, it’s over.”

Her eyelids fluttered, then she looked up at me as if unsure of who I was. Then she blinked a few times and her eyes widened. “Oh. Is the movie over?”

“Yes.”

She rubbed her eyes. “How did it end?”

“The Indians lost.”

“Thought so,” she said, standing.

I took a deep breath, then without help lifted myself up from the couch. I still had to take a moment to catch my breath.

“I could have helped you,” Angel said sleepily, barely stable on her own legs.

“I know.” I started walking toward my room. “Good night,” I said.

“Good night, Kevin.”

I looked at her. “Kevin?”

“Alan,” she said quickly.

I grinned. “Sorry, I’m not Costner.”

“Costner?” she asked, then nodded. “Oh right. Good night.”

I woke in the middle of the night. My room was dark, and I rolled over to look at the radio-alarm clock on the nightstand next to my bed. 3:07. I groaned, then lay back, wondering why I had woken so early. Then I heard it, a soft, muffled groan. My first thought was that it was a tomcat outside my window, until I realized it was coming from inside the apartment.

For several minutes, I lay still and listened. The noise sounded like crying. I pushed myself up and climbed out of bed, quietly opening my door. The sound was coming from Angel’s room. I walked over to her door and put my ear against it.

Angel was sobbing, though the noise was muffled, as if she were holding a pillow against her face. The sound of her in pain was heart-wrenching. I stood there for a moment, wanting to comfort her but unsure of what to do. Maybe she didn’t want my help.

After several minutes her sobbing decreased to a whimper, then faded altogether. I hobbled back to my bed, my mind filled with questions. The longer I was with her, the more I realized how little I knew her. The truth is, I didn’t know her at all.

The next week passed quietly as I settled into my new routine. I noticed something peculiar about my emotional state. Somehow the change of setting helped me keep my mind off McKale, as if I could deceive myself that I was only away on a business trip, and she was home waiting for me. Or, maybe it was because there was nothing familiar in my surroundings to remind me of her. Either way, I welcomed the emotional respite.

I walked a little further every day. And every day after my walk I studied my road atlas at length, marking it with a yellow highlighter pen, comparing roads and routes to best determine my next course.

I decided that when my body and the weather permitted, I would walk east along Interstate 90 through Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, then head south into Yellowstone National Park, exiting the east gate on my way to Rapid City, South Dakota. My route was probably neither the shortest nor the easiest. I had been to Yellowstone as a child and I just wanted to see the park again.

I didn’t plan my route past South Dakota for the same reason I hadn’t planned the first leg of my trip past Spokane: something my father had taught me. Whenever I got frustrated with a difficult task, my father would say, “How do you eat an elephant?” I’d look at him as if he’d lost his mind, then he’d say, “One bite at a time.” Rapid City, a little over 700 miles from Spokane, was my next bite.

I talked Angel into letting me take over the cooking. Compared to Angel, I wasn’t much of a chef, but I could handle myself in a kitchen. In my previous life I was a better cook than McKale, who claimed that the only thing she could make in the kitchen were reservations.

Our carousel of movies continued fairly regularly and our entertainment couldn’t have been more eclectic. The list took us from Westerns to classics to science fiction. In one week we watched
The Gold Rush, Wuthering Heights, Ben-Hur, Forrest Gump
, and
The French Connection
.

I started having reservations about the American Film Institute’s rankings.
Forrest Gump
was a stretch for me, but—with all due respect to Dustin Hoffman—
Tootsie?

I never said anything to Angel about the night I had heard her crying. I figured that if and when she wanted to talk about what was hurting her, she would. But it made me wonder about her and her past, which I knew nothing about, and she remained stingy in sharing.

Outside of her occasional bouts of moodiness, she was nothing but kind to me and spoke encouragingly about my progress. But underneath her veneer of hospitality there was a chasm of deep sadness and loneliness—emotions I understood all too well.

What worried me is that I sensed the gap was growing, as if each day she took one step back from me and the rest of the world. I had no idea how to cross the gap or even if I should try, but I couldn’t help but worry about her.

Ten days after being released from the hospital, Angel drove me back to Sacred Heart’s outpatient clinic so they could remove my stitches. While we were there, we dropped by the ICU to see Norma. Sadly, it was her day off.

My muscle tone was slowly returning as my wounds healed, and by the end of my second week at Angel’s I could get off the couch or climb the stairs without considering
either journal-worthy. I wasn’t about to compete in the Ironman, but for the time being, it was enough.

On November 11, I reached my first major goal. I walked to the corner of our block, then turned south and walked to the end of the street. Even though Angel and I had driven past this corner on the way to her house, there was something different about encountering the place on my own legs.

A Montessori school took up the back half of the block, and there were a few dozen young boys on the school’s backfield playing football.

I stopped to watch them, lacing my fingers through the cold chain-link fence. The boys wore long navy blue jerseys with big white helmets that made them look like bobble-head dolls.

I felt remarkably liberated to be outside and this far from home, and I took my time walking back. Walking around the block was a far cry from the twenty to thirty miles I’d been putting in prior to the attack, but it didn’t matter. Snows had already hit Wyoming and Montana, and the east entrance of Yellowstone was already closed to traffic. I wasn’t going anywhere soon.

The first measurable snow in Spokane fell on the fourteenth. The snowfall was deeper than I had anticipated—nearly five inches—and the sidewalks were completely buried. The good news was that the weatherman said it would be gone by the end of the week.

Instead of walking outside, I did some light calisthenics, then found an aerobics channel on television, which I followed along with at the lowest impact level.

As I was exercising, I could hear someone going up and down the walks with a snow blower. I parted the curtains and looked out. An elderly man was clearing the walks. He wore a brown parka, a knit scarf, and a hunting cap with earflaps, which he had pulled down and tied under his chin.

I thought he was a little old to be clearing the walks and, had I been able, I would have gone out and helped him.

About a half hour later, as I was finishing my second workout, there was a knock on the apartment door. I opened it to find the elderly gentleman standing in the doorway, his hat and shoulders flocked with snow. “Hello, is Nicole in?”

I looked at him quizzically. “No, Angel Arnell lives here.”

His brow furrowed, then he said, “Oh, then is Angel here?”

“No, she’s at work.”

“I’m Bill Dodd, I own this place. I just need to do a quick look-through of the apartment.”