Travels with Charley Blog Post

            After Will got shot I took the kids and left. I didn’t want to be in the Dakotas anymore. Although I told myself I didn’t miss him that much, I did. I missed his presence in my bed at night, his tender kiss on my cheek when he got home, his steady compliments on my cooking—even when I didn’t deserve them.

            So, I took the kids and we piled everything we owned—which wasn’t much—into our beat-up Scout and set off for California. I swear something was always pullin’ me back to that goddamn state. Even though it was expensive as hell—I knew I couldn’t afford San Francisco or Los Angeles—I just had to be there. Near the Pacific, the Valley, the Sierra Nevada. Hell, even the people in California seemed better to me than those in the South. Or the Northeast. Or the Midwest. Or the Southwest. Or anywhere in this godforsaken country.

            I settled with the kids in Monterey and put them in school. We were close enough to San Francisco that I could drive up on the weekends and stroll in the park, or even sometimes go out to eat. Sometimes I left the kids with the neighbors who I had become acquainted with and went out to dance in the city. And drink champagne with men I barely knew. And do other things that I don’t dare write about in the light of day. In Monterey, I decided to open a small boutique just off the main street in town—Cannery Row. I’ve been here for just over a year now, and to be honest, I’ve done well for myself. Well, better than I ever thought I could do alone with two children and a store of my own.

            I’m trying to start journaling—that’s what I’m doing now.  I want to be able to look back in twenty years and remember a certain April 17 or June 7. It takes effort, but at least it’s something more worthwhile than staring at the television with my third gin & tonic in hand. Anyway, the strangest thing happened this morning. I had just stepped out to water the front lawn when I noticed a bedraggled man walking a withered looking poodle along my street. I was so taken with the dog that I lost my footing and fell to the sidewalk. The man—he was apparently closer to me than I thought— rushed to my side—faster than I thought he could move—and helped me up. We got to talkin’ and he said that he was originally from ‘round these parts. Just a little further South.

 I liked him—he reminded me of the fatherly figures you see in movies who wouldn’t hurt a fly—so I invited him in for coffee. Which turned into lunch. Which turned into the two of us, sitting at the kitchen table, talking about life. My life, to be exact. He said he wanted to know my story. I assured him he didn’t, but he persisted. Finally, I gave in. Why the hell not? If this “writer” wanted to know about my travels around America, the different places I had lived, the heart that I couldn’t tell was broken or not after my husband’s death, who cared? I was just another American. Nothing special. Nothing out of the ordinary. Probably lucky, in fact. It’s not like he would turn my words into a book. Please. His coat was in tatters and it seemed like he could really do for a new leather-bound notebook to write in. There was no way he was getting published.