Chapter One
It was the trucker who told him.
Another trucker, another day on the road. How many years had he been traveling the country this way? Jay wondered. Truck stop to truck stop. Crisscrossing the country. Always searching for something. But Jay Kalan had long ago forgotten what he was looking for or where he was going. Now he was just going.
The day began like most days began for him. One trucker dropped him off at a travel stop. Another picked him up. If Jay had a chance, he would shower between rides, but often he would step off one truck and step onto another. Jay had been traveling for so long, some truck drivers already knew who he was.
This time it was a new driver who invited him to ride along. Jay had been waiting at a rest stop just outside of Phoenix, Arizona. He was ready to head east, maybe see some green trees. No other reason to go. Just new scenery. While he waited for someone to pick him up, he showered, ate, and then sat slumped at a table in front of McDonald’s, drinking coffee and looking as presentable as possible.
Once in a while, a trucker he knew would come by, slap him on his back and ask if he wanted to go their way. Most of the guys looked forward to some form of company, and Jay was an easy passenger. He listened more than talked, and he never shared what he heard.
None of the truckers he usually rode with were heading east, so he declined, saying, “Maybe next time.”
After a few hours of waiting, a trucker he didn’t know walked over and sat at his table. Said he had heard Jay was looking for a ride east. Said his name was, Pete. After checking around, he learned Jay was a good passenger, and he would enjoy the company.
They both nodded, shook hands and made last trips to the bathroom before heading out. For a while, Jay was treated to silence, and after asking if it was okay, he napped for a few hours. He knew that after he woke up, he would be expected to listen.
Jay wasn’t wrong. As soon as he was awake, Pete started talking. Truckers love new riders. They all had many stories to tell and with a new rider they knew their passenger had never heard them before.
Not that it stopped most of them from sharing them repeatedly. But the first time was always the best. Jay was used to it. It was the price he paid for the ride.
This one was telling the story of a trip he had taken last year. It had been an exciting job that took an interesting twist. Pete had picked up a girl heading to California and had been paid to do it by the father.
However, it turned out that wasn’t true. It wasn’t the father who needed to keep track of her. It was a guy named Grant who wanted to get the girl to California so he could kidnap her.
Jay let the words wash over him, nodding when it seemed appropriate, but mostly making grunting noises. It was essential to try to be somewhat social when hitching rides.
That way they sometimes fed you and let you keep on riding with them.
Jay didn’t care where the truckers took him because he didn’t know where he was going. Searching had been his life for so long that Jay was no longer interested in finding anything.
He had almost forgotten what started him on the road. Instead, Jay thought of himself as a fugitive. Always hiding. He wasn’t stupid, though. He knew that he could never truly hide because what he was hiding from was himself. He was hiding from his memories.
However, this time if the story was true, it was more interesting than most that Jay had listened to. So he perked up, which encouraged the trucker to tell more.
“Yep,” he said, “They were trying to keep her friends distracted by looking for her, but in the end, it all worked out. She found her daughter. The man who hired him turned out to be a long-lost uncle. Then she got married, and I was lucky to be invited. It was a happy ending.”
Then the trucker said something about the place where the girl and her friends lived. Farm country, mountains, town, and trees. Just like thousands of places in the United States.
But something Pete said brought it all back to Jay in a rush. The images that had taken over his life. The memories that had sucked all joy from everything for as long as he could remember, which turned out to be a long time. Lifetimes of memories.
For the first time since he had gotten into the truck, Jay turned his full attention to the man who had given him a ride. What was his name? Oh yea, Pete.
Swallowing his natural impulse to be rude, he politely asked Pete for the name of the place. Then he waited with growing impatience while Pete told him about the town called Doveland.
***
A few days later, Pete Mann was still puzzled. He thought he and Jay had been enjoying their time together. But something had happened.
They had only been traveling for part of a day before Jay changed his mind about going east. Jay said that he did that kind of thing all the time. Said that out of the blue, he would have the urge to go some place else, and since he wasn’t tied down to any schedule, he went where his whims took him. It wasn’t personal.
Pete dropped Jay off at the next truck stop on Route 80. They shook hands and parted on a friendly note. But something didn’t feel right to Pete.
So Pete picked up his cell phone and made a call.
Could he stop by on his way home? He would be there in a few days. His face creased into a radiant smile, hearing Ava’s excited answer that they couldn’t wait to see him. Was he ready to do some baby cuddling? Assuring her he was honored to be an adopted granddad, Pete hung up, feeling the warmth of belonging to this new extended family.
However, something was still bothering him about his passenger. He had learned enough to know that he needed to follow his feelings and trust his instincts.
When he got to Doveland, he would tell them about the passenger who called himself Jay.
In the meantime, he could do one more thing. He would ask his fellow truckers to keep a lookout for Jay and let Pete know if they saw him or gave him another ride. There was no need for explanations. It was a brotherhood. On the road, you needed one.
