The hygiene facilities may have been insufficient, but there were coolers and aisles full of edible things to consume and other things to shove into every remaining space in backpacks, duffle bags, and pockets. Food wasn’t our biggest concern. Jeremy and Fred had brought grocery bags full of granola bars and non-perishable food in the cabin of their truck, which we had carried with relative ease down the highway. Jeremy could have packed more food if he had removed the lumber from the truck bed, but I was doing my best not to criticize him. I couldn’t relate to pressure of processing all of this with a kid to deal with.
At any rate, the truck stop provided what we needed. Except for cleanliness.
Evelyn and Jeremy hadn’t had much success in the diner. The appliances seemed functional, but the walk-in freezer didn’t reveal anything more appealing than what we could get by opening a bag of chips or a pack of jerkey, and there was more of that than we could use.
Jeremy thought we should investigate the shower situation—fix it—but he had shown little skill as either an auto-mechanic or a chef, so I didn’t have much faith in him as a plumber. Also, we were tired. Sleep was a bigger priority.
Evelyn said a prayer as we made ourselves as comfortable as we could, heads on backpacks and bodies on tile. She had said a prayer every night since I met her. I never listened, so I can’t comment on the prayers’ content. They were important to her, so I kept quiet as she mumbled, meditating in my own way, remembering the day my wife and I got lost in the woods.
It was my favorite memory of my Elizabeth. It wasn’t a remarkable day, but it was the day I realized I actually loved her. We had been camping for a long weekend, doing little but hiking and screwing and cooking over a fire Elizabeth had made. She was the camper. She had the experience and skills. I was along for the ride.
The day we were to pack up and hike back to our car, which was parked a little over a mile away at the State Park ranger station, a storm rolled in. Had we been checking the weather reports, we would have known it was coming, but we were busy hiking and screwing and cooking.
The rain came suddenly, followed by an undulating darkness, a squirming wall of black that dropped the temperature by dozens of degrees. It came so suddenly that Elizabeth got turned around and we hiked away from the ranger station for half an hour, sopping wet and sore, before she realized her mistake.
“We should stop here until it passes,” I said as the thunder sounded a particularly deep crash.
“No, we need shelter,” she said.
She knew as well as I did that by the time we found shelter, the storm likely would have passed, so we stopped where we were, in a muddy, pine needle covered alcove under precariously swaying trees. We didn’t pitch the tent. We just laid next to each other, her arm around my torso, getting so wet that we sank into the soil.
The memory of Elizabeth in the rain was my prayer. Evelyn’s involved Jesus, but I didn’t listen enough to tell you more than that.
Evelyn finished her prayer and we slept as best as we could.