The Leisure Seeker: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

matter-of-fact voice, as if resuming a conversation we started last night. It is the old John, come to visit.
    “Haven’t slept in the camper for a while, have we? Feels pretty good. How’d you sleep, hon?”
    I walk over to the bed, sit on the ledge next to it. “Not great. But it is nice to be camping again, isn’t it?”
    “Sure is. Where are we again?” He rubs his cheeks and pulls at his bottom lip.
    He’s like this in the mornings sometimes, normal as can be. “We’re in Illinois,” I say. “About a hundred miles from the Missouri state line.”
    “Wow. We’re making good time, aren’t we?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Boy, it feels good to be on the road again. Feels right.”
    “Yes, it does.”
    The ridges in his forehead ripple and furrow. “Have you talked to the kids?”
    “I spoke to Cindy yesterday at lunch. She’s worried about us being on vacation.”
    “Why’s she worried?” He gets up, arches his back to get the kinks out. “Uggh,” he groans. “Old man Mose.”

    “Oh, you know Cindy. She’s a worrier.”
    He smiles at me. “I wonder where she got that from.”
    I smile back, wrangle myself off the ledge, and kiss him good morning. I touch the ruddy mottled skin of his head, smooth back the wisps of dampish gray hair on both sides of that endless forehead. On these days, morning is like a return, a meeting up again.
    “Hey, is there water on for coffee?” I nod, then head back over to the counter and pour us both a cup of instant. I stir in a half packet of Sweet’n Low in his mug and take it over to him. He has lain down again, closed his eyes.
    “John?”
    He opens them and looks at me. “Where are we?”
    “I just told you, honey. We’re in Illinois.”
    “No, you didn’t.”
    “Yes, I did, John.”
    “Is this home?”
    And just like that, the old John is gone. This is how it happens. Sometimes I get him for a few minutes in the morning, wonderful moments when he actually acts like himself, as if his mind has forgotten to be forgetful. Then suddenly it’s like our whole conversation never happened. I should get used to this, but I just can’t.
    “Why don’t you get dressed, John? And put some clean clothes on.”
    “All right.”
    I step outside and sit on a lawn chair to take my meds.This morning, I seem to be in some “discomfort,” as my doctors love to call it, so I take one of my little blue oxycodone pills along with the fistful of meds I usually take. I don’t really want to cloud my judgment since I’m the commander of this ship of fools, but it’s quite a bit of discomfort, take my word for it.
    I hear John inside the trailer, getting dressed. He could probably use some help, but I don’t want to talk to him for a while. I want to enjoy those few lucid minutes with him while they’re still fresh in my memory.
     
    Soon, we’re as cleaned up as either of us are going to get. John is wearing a loud green plaid shirt and beige plaid pants. I almost tell him that it looks like he belongs at the Barnum & Bailey circus, but these days I’m just happy to get him into clean clothes. Who am I to talk, anyway? I’ve replaced my wig with Kevin’s old wool baseball cap, one that he used to wear constantly when he went camping with us. I almost put it on backward like I see the kids do, but then I change my mind. There are degrees of foolishness, after all. Maybe later I’ll make do with a babushka, but for now I love this old Detroit Tigers cap.
    Back on 66, John is in good spirits, not like he was this morning, but cheery and driving well. As for me, I feel both the caffeine and the drugs work their magic on me. My fingertips tingle. My heart whirrs like a thrush. I am alert, euphoricjust to be traveling. The thrum of our tires on the pavement is joyous music to me, quelling my fears, transiting my discomfort to a place far up the road, a shuddering speck on the apparent horizon.
    Here now, we have entered another state.

Four
    MISSOURI
    We pass a church with