Something about this little drama both fascinated and conflicted me. The scene was so simple and real, maybe hopeful, yet it made me feel incomplete. Why did it make me feel so uncomfortable? As I pondered this I realized that what I was witnessing had been taken from me not just once, but twice. First, when my mother died. Second, when McKale did. I was missing my past and future simultaneously.

Would I ever have what this family had? Would I ever remarry? Would I ever have children? I honestly couldn’t imagine it. Yet…

My thoughts were interrupted by Molly returning with my dinner. I asked her if she knew of a place nearby where I could stay.

“There’s a KOA about a quarter mile up the road,” she said, pointing out the window. “A lot of my customers stay there. They have cabins for rent.”

“Are the cabins nice?”

“I wouldn’t know. But I haven’t heard anyone complain.”

“Would they complain if they didn’t like it?”

She rolled her eyes. “Some people complain if the ice in their cola is too cold.”

I grinned. “You’re right.”

I finished eating, got a piece of apple pie to go, then headed out toward the KOA. The campground had several vacancies and the man who ran the place reminded me that there were no sheets in the rentals.

“There’s a mattress but no sheets,” he said. “There’s a sink and toilet, but if you want to shower you come to this building right here.”

“Perfect,” I said. Maybe not perfect, but for forty-five dollars a night, with an air conditioner, porch swing, and television, I could do a lot worse. I rolled my sleeping bag out on the bed, turned on the television to the David Letterman show, then lay down and promptly fell asleep.

Chapter Ten

C H A P T E R

Ten

My hair is getting long. I’ve got to

find a barber before someone

mistakes me for a rock star.

Alan Christoffersen’s diary

The next day I did nothing but walk. It seemed like the same scenery kept repeating itself, like the background of a Flintstones cartoon. I only passed one house the whole day, until evening when I reached the town of Murdo. I ate at the Prairie Pizza and spent the night at the American Inn.

The next morning I woke with a headache, though it passed fairly quickly. I packed up then ate a breakfast of sausage and biscuits with white gravy at the diner at the World Famous Pioneer Auto Show.