“I’m sorry, Lisa,” Alex said. “But I have to take her. Hal, can we go now?”
“We’d better,” Dad said. “Lisa, darling, I’ll be back tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.” He kissed her and Gabriel, hugged Charlie, and half pushed Julie out of the house. Alex did the other half of the pushing.
I thought Julie might cry, but she was silent, the way Alex can be. I had mixed feelings. I knew I’d miss Julie, and I felt bad for Jon and Lisa. But I was excited at the thought of leaving Howell for the first time in over a year. And I was so sure that once Julie was in the convent, Alex would agree to stay with me.
Julie and Alex had returned our clothes to us yesterday and had all their belongings in their backpacks. We threw our sleeping bags into the back of the old van. Mom’s van and Matt’s car and Mrs. Nesbitt’s car hadn’t started when Dad tried them last night, and Matt was so angry at himself that he picked a fight with Syl. They stayed up half the night yelling at each other.
Jon was mad, too. He’d gone over to Dad’s last night to say good-bye, but Mom refused to let him go again this morning. So he was curled up in a corner of the dining room, trying not to cry.
It seemed like an excellent time to get away from home.
Dad did the driving, and I sat next to him. If you didn’t know better, you’d think we were a family, maybe a divorced dad bringing his kids back to their mom after a long weekend. Of course we were a bilingual family, since the only conversation I could hear between Alex and Julie was whispered in Spanish.
Even on the highway Dad stuck to 30 miles an hour. The engine sputtered, and at one point it overheated, and Dad stopped driving until it cooled down. I didn’t mind. Everything was gloomy and gray and there were no signs of life anywhere, but it was still thrilling to be away, and there was no hurry to get back home. Alex and I had all the time in the world to be together.
I realized the second time Dad stopped to let the car cool down that I might never get this far from home again. Mom wasn’t going to leave, with food still coming to us and electricity practically every day and with as much wood as we’d ever need to stay warm. Syl might want to go (that seemed to be one of the things she and Matt fought about last night), but Matt won’t leave Mom or the rest of us behind. I guess if Dad and Lisa leave, Jon might go with them. But why would Lisa go anywhere, when traveling’s dangerous for the baby.
So this trip was it for me, summer camp and college and honeymoon all rolled into one. The fact that it was going to end at a convent didn’t dampen my excitement. It’s not like I’ve ever been to a convent before.
“How do you know about this place?” I asked after I’d gotten sufficiently bored trying to figure out what Alex and Julie were going on about. “From the Fresh Air Fund?”
“No,” Alex said. “Our priest told me about it a year ago. They were taking girls in, but Julie was too young then.”
Julie muttered something in Spanish. Alex muttered back.
“If your priest approved of it, it must be a good place,” Dad said.
“Yes,” Alex said. “That’s why Carlos thought it would be good for Julie.”
“There’ll be girls your age there, Julie,” Dad said. “That will be nice for you, having friends again.”
“Jon was my friend,” Julie said, which set Alex off on a Spanish torrent.
Dad ignored him. “Jon’s going to miss you,” he said. “We all will.”
“It’s for the best,” Alex said. “Julie’s going to a safe place. God will look after her there.”
“That’s a comfort, I’m sure,” Dad said, slamming on the brakes. “We’d better clear those branches off the road,” he said. “I can’t risk driving over them.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. Alex joined me. Dad had done a good job driving over and around potholes, but the roads were in awful condition, littered with branches and other garbage. Mostly it wasn’t a problem, but occasionally we had to stop and clear things out of the way.
“I hadn’t realized you’ve known about the convent that long,” I said. It made me feel better to learn that Julie would have been at the convent for a year if she’d been old enough to go last summer.
“It’s a good place,” he said. “The sisters will look after her. They’ll learn to love her.”
“We have,” I said.
Alex nodded. “You’ve been very good to her,” he said. “Your family’s been very kind to both of us.” He grabbed the biggest branch and dragged it to the side of the road while I carried some smaller ones. I looked through the front window of the van and could see Dad had turned around to talk to Julie.
“Things will be all right,” I said softly. “For Julie. For us.”
“I would love you forever if I could,” he said.
“You can,” I said, wanting desperately to hold him. But all I could do was brush my hand quickly against his. For a second he clutched my hand in his.
We got back in the car, and Dad resumed his slow drive through New York. Alex and Julie had nothing more to say to each other in any language, and Dad gave up trying to make small talk. I could see he was worried about the van, but he didn’t say anything about it.
We made one pit stop, which was pretty literally that. We’d brought some food with us, but we were saving it for supper. Nothing was open, none of the strip malls we passed or the occasional motel or gas station. I thought about how Matt had met Syl at a motel and wondered if any of the ones on the side of the road had people camping out in them, but there were no signs of life.
We drove ninety miles without seeing another car, and the scariest thing was that seemed normal.
“It’s hard to believe there are still people out there,” I said. “Is everyone living in evac centers and cities?”
“It seems that way, doesn’t it,” Dad said. “But there were plenty of people on the road. There were days we didn’t run into anybody else, but for the most part you’d see someone new every day.”
“Syl told me bands of people came together and split apart,” I said. “I guess your band stayed together, all of you and Charlie.”
“Charlie was the glue,” Dad said. “He never let us give up.”
“It’s amazing,” I said. “It really is. You traveled thousands of miles, and Dad, you’re back with us, and now Julie’s going to this convent Alex has known about for a year. It really is amazing.”
“Christ has blessed us,” Alex said.
“Yes, He has,” Dad said.
Well, that was a conversation stopper.
We made two more stops, one to cool down the engine and one to clear off the road, and then we got to the town. Like everything else, it was completely deserted. It had been a charming town once, you could tell. There were antique stores and bakeries with French names and tea shoppes. But now it was a ghost town like Howell, only worse, because I know there are people in Howell.
“The convent is on Whitlock Lane,” Alex said. “Off Albany Post Road.”
“We should be able to find it, then,” Dad said. “Albany Post Road is generally the biggest street in these towns, like Main Street. We’ll see where it takes us.”
It took us through neighborhoods with empty streets. But amazingly, or maybe miraculously, we saw the road sign for Notburga Farms.
“That’s it,” Alex said. “That’s its name.”
Dad made a left, and we drove for a couple of miles on Whitlock Lane. The road was in bad shape, and we had to stop a couple of times to move debris. It was a relief when we saw the Notburga Farms sign.
We looked out at a field. You could imagine how beautiful it must have been a year ago, a large green expanse surrounded by an apple orchard. But now the ground was gray and the trees had only a few sickly leaves.
It could have been anywhere. It could have been Howell.
I got out and opened the gate. Dad followed the driveway to the convent. It was an old farmhouse, with outbuildings, barns, and what looked to be a chapel.
“I don’t think there’s anyone here,” Dad said.
“No,” Alex said. “There must be. I asked about it at the archdiocese in Louisville. It was listed as open.”
“Alex, that was months ago,” Dad said. “Anything could have happened.”
“We’re going in,” Alex said. “I won’t believe the sisters deserted this place until I see it for myself. Come on, Julie.”
We all got out of the van. Alex led the way, knocking boldly on the farmhouse door.
