“Turn right onto Bellaire Boulevard,” the robotic female voice said, and Loretta Thompson ducked her head to see further down the street.
“Oh, there it is,” she said. The truck she drove inched along as it was, her foot already off the accelerator. On the far end of the bench seat, Sally Redwood rode with a smile on her face. Loretta made the turn, very nearly scraping the front fender of her 1950s Ford F-150 along the side of a red sedan parked on the narrow street.
“It’ll be a miracle if we make it out of Cleveland without hitting five cars,” Loretta muttered. The radio pumped pop music into the cab, so Sally didn’t respond. She wouldn’t be coming into the house to help Loretta with any bags either, as Sally had just had a hip replacement six weeks ago.
She seemed in good spirits today, and Loretta thanked the heavens above that her pain meds were working better than yesterday.
The back tires on her silver bullet camper bumped over the curb, and Loretta’s gaze flew to the rear-view mirrors that stuck out from the sides of the truck. She couldn’t exactly swing this thing, and in her travels all over the US, returning lost items to their owners, she’d hit many things with both the truck and the trailer.
Her grouchy neighbors back home in Linden Falls had told her to stop making the road trips, but Loretta didn’t know how. No one knew what she did when she up and packed a few bags with clothes and toiletries, a few boxes with food, and left Vermont.
She’d never felt a need to tell them, as small-town gossip could fly faster than a falcon, and she didn’t need it to be about her. Not again. Not ever again.
A twinge of regret always accompanied the thoughts of her gypsy soul, for Loretta knew she left Neva Cabot and the Wishing Tree Inn in a lurch when she headed out of town. When she did live in town, she usually cleaned rooms at the inn, which was how she found the lost treasures and then set out to return them.
She simply couldn’t stay in one place for longer than six or seven months. Every time she returned to Vermont, she told herself she wouldn’t leave again. An electronic device, a child’s toy, or an errant pair of shoes could be thrown away. She’d collect the items in a plastic bin and look at them each day when she returned home from work.
She literally imagined what those shoes had seen. She wanted to know which child was crying over their misplaced elephant, and she conjured up gasps of joy when the lost item was returned.
In truth, she had been thanked multiple times over the years, but sometimes the people she reunited with their belongings didn’t seem to care at all. On this last trip, one such gentleman in the Houston area of Texas had actually thrown away the set of coasters his wife had left behind.
“She’s my ex now,” he’d said. “You wasted your time.” Then he’d gone right back in the house, closed the door in a bit of slam, and left Loretta to wonder if he was right.
No, she told herself as she went down the narrow street, houses lining both sides of it. Cars too, and if someone turned onto the street and came toward her, she’d have nowhere to go. This trip was worth it, because you have Sally and Lois coming home with you.
That alone had made her last few months on the road bearable, and Loretta once again vowed that once she returned to Linden Falls, she wouldn’t leave again.
“Your destination is on the left,” the cool computerized voice said. “You have arrived.”
Loretta looked out her window, and sure enough, a petite, pixie-haired woman stood at the end of a sidewalk that led to a pale green house. Lois Bryant wore a smile that made her blue eyes crinkle, and two suitcases flanked her.
“There she is,” Sally said, and Loretta put the truck in park and got out.
“Lois.” She laughed as she jogged between two cars and stepped up onto the sidewalk. She engulfed Lois in a hug, though the woman was a few years older than her. “You’re even more beautiful in person.” She stepped back and took in her nearly gray hair. The parts that were still blonde were almost white, just as Lois had said.
“So are you,” she said to Loretta, and that made her reach up to tuck her thick, dark hair behind her ear. She couldn’t stand wearing it in a ponytail anymore, and she’d let the gray grow wild in it. She didn’t have much, and Neva had said her hair color was like a “dusting of snow” in a freshly turned field. “Thank you for coming to get me.”
“I’m not sure we’ll make it off this street, but I’ll try.” Loretta reached for one of the suitcases, perfectly at-ease. Her grandmother would turn over in her grave if she knew Loretta was picking up strangers and taking them back to the old stone house where she’d once lived.
They weren’t really strangers—not to her. She’d met Sally and Lois in an online genealogy group, where they’d bonded over stories of their childhood though they’d all grown up in wildly different locations.
“How’s Sally’s pain today?” Lois asked as she towed the other suitcase after Loretta.
“Better,” she said over her shoulder. “She doesn’t want to ride in the middle, though. So sorry. You’re stuck next to me.” She laughed, glad when Lois joined her.
“Middle rider gets to control the radio,” Lois said, and Loretta agreed. They loaded Lois’s bags into the back of the truck, and then she waited while Lois slid past the wheel to the middle seat before she retook her place as the driver.
“Sally.” Lois gripped her like they were long-lost twins, separated at birth and now being reunited after five decades. “How are you, my friend?”
“Good,” Sally said, her eyes squeezed shut. “You?”
“Oh, just fine.” Lois pulled back and settled her purse on the floor at her feet. “This okay here?”
“Great,” Loretta said.
“Yep.” Sally wiped her eyes, and Loretta wasn’t sure what that was about. She hailed from St. Louis, and Loretta had so enjoyed meeting her a few days ago, on the trip from south to north, from Texas back to Vermont.
“Okay,” she said with as much cheerfulness as she could muster. And Loretta had always been able to muster a lot of it. Practice, her mother had told her. Practice being happy, and you will be.
Of course, her mom had also told her that everything would be fine during storms, that thunder and wind couldn’t harm her, and that hadn’t been true.
“From here to our next stop, which is Buffalo in the great state of New York, is about three hours.” She looked to her right down the bench seat in the truck. “We’re ready? We have snacks?”
Lois grinned and dove for her purse. She emerged triumphantly with a bag of shelled pistachios. “Snacks,” she confirmed.
“Drinks?”
Loretta’s old truck didn’t have drink holders, but Sally lifted her capped water bottle and said, “Drinks, check.”
“Seatbelts?” She clicked hers into place while Sally grumbled about them being ready to go.
“Anyone need to go to the bathroom?” Loretta asked anyway.
“We’re ready,” Lois said, and Loretta looked out the windshield. Physically, they were all ready to go to Linden Falls via Buffalo.
But inside Loretta’s mind, she wondered if she was really ready to face the picturesque Vermont town again. You have new friends, she told herself. You’re ready. You can do this.
* * *
Two days later, after nine more hours of driving, Loretta’s fingers kneaded the steering wheel. “The sign is just around this corner,” she said. Linden Falls had a huge welcome sign, hand-carved by a local resident. Every other year, the City Council organized a group of people to clean the sign, repaint it, and re-seal it so everyone who drove down this stretch of lonely highway in Vermont knew they’d entered the city of Linden Falls.
It had once been up for “Friendliest City in America,” and Mayor O’Brien still took that very seriously. They hadn’t won, but he said a good welcome sign was always appreciated.
Loretta found herself smiling at the trees, though they all bore rich, green leaves. Come autumn, the real spectacular would begin, and on the seat next to her, Lois bounced.
“I can’t believe I’m here.” She shook her head, her phone out and ready. “Slow down, Loretta. I want to get a picture for my kids.”
She wasn’t sure why, but Loretta didn’t say anything. Lois had spent the past two days telling Sally and Loretta about her girls and how upset they were that she’d left Cleveland.
Sally didn’t have any children to be concerned about her hip, nor to help her around the house. Loretta’s own loneliness could consume her sometimes, so when she’d learned she’d be on her way through St. Louis, and could easily swing by Cleveland, she’d asked Sally and Lois if they wanted to come to Linden Falls with her for a few months.
To her surprise, they’d both said yes, and well, Loretta rounded the curve and the glorious “Welcome to Linden Falls” sign appeared. Trees surrounded the words, and they moved through all of the seasons, from spring flowers and buds, to the summer foliage they currently saw in living color around them. Then into the gorgeous fall colors that thousands of tourists came to see every year, and then finally to bare-branched trees in the winter.
Loretta did love the seasons in Vermont, and she loved the small stand of maple trees she tapped for syrup each year. Her travels never took her from Vermont in the winter, for she disliked nothing more than a winter storm. So driving in one? Nope. She wouldn’t do it, and sometimes she even called off from driving the few miles from her house to the inn if the weather was bad.
Her throat narrowed again; she drove past the sign and into town; the Wishing Tree stood tall and proud in the square, and Loretta wanted to stomp on the accelerator and ram her sturdy truck right into the trunk of it.
Maybe then it wouldn’t be able to crush someone else’s wish the way it had hers.
“Is that the Wishing Tree?” Sally asked.
“Let’s stop,” Lois said, fully in tourist mode.
“I have the camper,” Loretta said, intending to put them off until at least tomorrow. It was her fault for telling them about the tree in the first place. A few people lingered in the park, but the heat of the day had driven most of them into the forests and hills for their recreation. Or inside, where the air conditioning would keep them from melting.
“There’s a long spot right there,” Lois said, swinging her head toward Loretta.
She brightened instantly, telling herself that she could stop. It was fine. After all, she couldn’t avoid the tree forever.
