Later that evening, someone knocked at my motel door. It was Julia.
She asked to come in, then told me Mary had described our trip in more detail than I expected.
Julia's husband had died nine months earlier. She said she had been lonely for months and felt trapped by everyone's expectation that grief had a fixed timetable. Because I was a stranger who would soon be gone, she asked whether I was interested in spending the evening with her.
I was surprised, but Julia was an adult, I was unattached in every meaningful sense I recognized at the time, and the attraction was mutual. We became intimate.
Later, Mary arrived. What followed was consensual among adults, though by then my road trip had become something I never could have predicted when I left Michigan.
The next day, Julia returned once more. She joked that she needed to make the most of the fact that I would be leaving soon. Before going home, she told me she would not mind if I came back to St. Paul after I figured out what I was doing with my life.
"In a few months, I'll feel ready to date again," she said. "Who knows?"
"I don't know where I'm going to end up," I admitted. "Maybe I'll come back."
Mary came later that afternoon. We spent our final night together, and the next morning she hugged me goodbye.
"I'm glad you're leaving today," she said, then laughed at my expression. "Not in a bad way. Once Jake is served, I need to stay completely aboveboard. If you stayed, I'd be too tempted."
She kissed me and left.
I checked the time and called Dawson and Sons before going to Julia's to pick up my passengers.
"Good morning, Dawson and Sons. How can I help you?"
"Morning, Glenda. Is Mom around?"
"Bobby, even if she wasn't, I've been instructed to put you through immediately. Please tell me you're coming home."
"I might be. It's not definite."
Mom picked up two rings later.
"Bobby, where are you?"
"St. Paul. Minnesota."
"What are you doing there?"
"Getting ready to head back toward Michigan."
"Thank goodness. I need you here."
"I'm coming back to the state. That doesn't mean I'm coming back to work."
"Damn it, Robert, I need you here."
"How are you going to keep me and David apart?"
There was a pause.
"You don't have to worry about that," Mom said. "I caught him stealing from the company. I fired him."
I did not know what to say.
After a moment, I told her the truth about the money I had taken before leaving. I said I had treated it like severance pay after what Dad had done.
Mom sighed.
"We'll sort that out later. For now, we're treating it as an advance against whatever compensation we agree on if you return. You may have to repay part of it."
I had barely touched that money. Most of my travel expenses had come from the personal funds I took when I left.
Then I asked about Dad.
"I don't know where he is," Mom said. "And I don't care. Sonia eventually threw him and your brother out."
I told her Cindy had already mentioned they were living with Sonia.
"Come home first," Mom said. "We can deal with everything else afterward."
I promised I would see her in a few days.
I drove to Julia's house to collect Jessica and her boyfriend for the trip toward Ann Arbor. Julia greeted me warmly, then hugged Jessica and reminded her to behave and get good grades.
The next morning, I drove to Julia's house to pick up the students. As I carried Jessica's bags to the car, I asked when Mike would arrive.
"He isn't coming," Jessica said. "We broke up last night. I found out he was seeing Abby Fisk."
Considering what I had been through, my first reaction was embarrassingly selfish. Jessica was nineteen, attractive, and I was now facing a long drive with her alone. I pushed that thought aside almost immediately. She had just been hurt and was trusting me to get her safely back to school.
On the highway, we talked. Jessica was studying pre-law at the University of Michigan on scholarship and intended to attend law school. I asked her to choose the radio station, but she preferred reading, so I found country and bluegrass and let her disappear into her book.
After about four hours, she asked where we were stopping for the night.
"We don't need to," I said. "It's about six hundred miles. We should reach Ann Arbor tonight."
"I want to stop," she replied. "I don't need to check into the dorm until the day after tomorrow, and even if we reach town tonight, I'd miss the normal check-in window."
A few minutes passed before she added the real reason. She had overheard Mary and Julia talking in detail about my time with them and, after a recent breakup and several disappointing experiences with men her own age, curiosity had taken over. Jessica told me her first experience had happened after senior prom, shortly after she turned eighteen, and had left her wondering whether intimacy was always supposed to feel rushed and one-sided. Two later relationships had not improved her opinion much.
I told her that being hurt by one boyfriend and disappointed by others was not a reason to prove anything with me. She said she was not trying to prove anything. She wanted to know what it felt like to be with someone older who would actually pay attention to whether she was comfortable.
"I also overheard Mom and Aunt Mary talking about you."
I looked at her.
"That's not a conversation I needed to know existed."
She laughed. "They said you were very attentive. I wanted to see for myself."