My sister cried. Big, wild sobs like I haven’t seen since we were kids. I didn’t expect it. Everyone’s taken the news that we’re tearing off for the horizon differently. We didn’t make the announcement all at once, afraid of saying the words and making it true, of spooking it off, maybe. We started by selling our things. And not just clothes and gadgets and useless tools but cars and furniture. It’s not something we do in America. We don’t shed belongings, we acquire them, hoard them up until our worthless treasures tell the dusty tale of our lives. It wasn’t a week before a friend called and asked quietly,
“Do you need help?”
His question stumbled me.
“Mentally?”
He meant financially. Thought I’d got us upside down trying to support a wife and infant on a writer’s salary. He didn’t sound any less concerned when I told him what we were up to, his voice flecked with the worry that he might catch whatever’s got ahold of my head. He wasn’t the only one to ask if we were in trouble or to offer aid. I’ve never been more amazed at the size of the hearts around us.
I didn’t make it easy on anyone. I didn’t have answers to their quick questions. I still can’t tell you exactly where we’ll go or how long we’ll stay there. I don’t now what we’ll do when the trip is over. I don’t know if we’ll come back to Knoxville, our home for the last six years, or how we’ll cope if our infant daughter can’t stand living in a space smaller than her nursery. It’s been so long since I’ve blundered openly into the unknown, and if it scares me, it terrifies those around us. As much as we like to think of ourselves as wild and free individuals, we are nation of planners. No one is comfortable with my newfound mantra: I don’t know.
Almost no one. My father. His brothers. Others of their generation. They didn’t scoff or look concerned. Their eyes brightened with the flicker of possibility. Of desire. By telling them our idiot scheme to run while we still have legs to carry us, we made them co-conspirators in our escape plan. Maybe it’s because they’re further down the hole of mortgage payments and retirement planning and 80-hour workweeks. Maybe it’s because they’re old enough to mourn the time they’ve lost. Or maybe it’s because they’ve always heard that same call I hear now, and never answered it, but they’ve all told us to go. To love it. And they’ve smiled as they’ve said the words.
The rest of our friends at home took it in shades. Some excited for our adventure, some hurt by our leaving. The latter seemed to take it as an indictment, a judgment, as if our restlessness was a symptom of what we found lacking here. In some ways, they were right.
By the time I had the conversation with my sister, I’d said the same words a hundred times. I’d lost hold of their weight, and they fell on her in heavy, careless blows. We didn’t see each other for 14 years, split by the terms of a custody agreement, and when I came back to Knoxville it was, in part, to get to know her. We’d done a poor job of it, filling our schedules and finding excuses not to make the short trip across town. When I saw her tears, I tried a joke, saying it wasn’t like I was dying. No, that she could handle. She hadn’t gone through that before. But she had seen me leave. She had spent more than half her life wondering if I’d come back, and I’d just told her I was going again.
We were tangled up in an awkward hug on the couch, her lungs heaving in ragged fits and starts.
“You know the camper sleeps four, right?” I asked. “You can come visit us wherever we are.”
“Are you serious?”
It was a rare moment. For once, I had an answer.
“Absolutely.”