Mia takes the pills with a sip of water, and then we wait. By the time our flight is announced, she is nearly asleep.
We will fly to Minneapolis/St. Paul for a forty-five-minute layover, before continuing onto Duluth, Minnesota. There, a so-called friend of Gabe’s, Detective Roger Hammill, will meet and drive us to Grand Marais. He refers to him as his friend, but even I can hear the disdain in his voice when he speaks of this man. Our flight is early, 9:00 a.m., and as the airplane ascends into the dreadfully cold sky, we know it will be a long day. Our only saving grace is that Mia is asleep.
Mia and I sit side by side. She has the window seat, and me the aisle. Gabe sits opposite the slender aisle and once or twice brushes a hand against my arm and asks if I’m okay. Beside him Dr. Rhodes is lost in an audiobook, the headphones covering her ears. The rest of the plane is oblivious to our situation. They jabber on and on about the weather, skiing conditions and their connecting flights. A woman loses herself in the “Our Father” as the plane takes off, praying we land in one piece. She grips a rosary in her trembling hands. The pilot warns of a bumpy flight and asks that we remain in our seats.
By the time we land in Minneapolis, Mia has come to and is upset once again by the commotion. I ask the doctor when she is due for more medicine, but Dr. Rhodes assures me that we must wait; we need Mia to be lucid for this afternoon. As we wait for our connection, Gabe offers up an iPod for Mia, and finds the least offensive music he can possibly find to drown out the sound.
I wonder what will happen when we arrive. The thought of it is enough to make me sick. I think of Mia’s reaction to the cat. What will her reaction be when we see the place where she was held prisoner all this time? I think of the progress we’ve made since she returned home. Will it be lost?
I excuse myself to use the bathroom and Dr. Rhodes takes my seat beside Mia so that she won’t be alone. When I come out of the bathroom, Gabe is waiting for me. I walk into him so that he collects me in his arms, and says, “Soon, this will all be through. Trust me.”
I do.
In Duluth, we’re escorted to a police department SUV by a man who introduces himself as Detective Hammill. Gabe calls him Roger. Mia says it’s nice to meet him, though Gabe reminds me that it isn’t the first time they’ve met.
He’s a big-bellied man, about my age but to me he looks much older, and I’m made aware than I am getting older by the day. There’s a photograph of his wife taped to the inside of the SUV: an overweight blonde woman, with a circle of children huddled around them. There are six children, each as burly and plump as the next.
Mia, Dr. Rhodes and I slide into the backseat while Gabe takes the front. He offered it to me, but I happily refused, not up to the burdensome task of small talk.
The drive is over two hours. Gabe and Detective Hammill lose themselves in idle banter about police work. They try to one-up one another, and I can tell that Gabe does not like the man. Gabe’s voice is not overly friendly, and at times he is short, though for the benefit of us women, he remains civil. He tries to speak to Mia and me more than our chauffeur, and for much of the drive, the rest of us sit in silence while Detective Hammill gives a soliloquy on two Tiberwolves wins this season against the Chicago Bulls. I have no knowledge of professional sports.
We travel along Highway 61 for the bulk of the journey, riding, in part, along the shores of Lake Superior. Mia’s eyes are steadfast on the waters. I wonder if she’s seen them before.
“Anything look familiar?” Gabe asks more than once. He asks all the questions I don’t have the courage to.
Earlier, Dr. Rhodes made it clear that Gabe should not pry too hard. Gabe made it clear that he had a job to do; hers was to pick up the pieces when they fell.
“Assuming the shortest distance between two points is a straight line,” Detective Hammill says, peering at Mia in the rearview mirror, “you would have traveled this path.”
We pass through Grand Marais and take a path known as the Gunflint Trail. Detective Hammill is a wealth of information, although little he has to offer is new to me, having memorized every detail of the scenic byway in the sleepless nights since Mia returned. We travel along a two-lane road, through the Superior National Forest, surrounded by more vegetation than I believe I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Much of the greenery is dead now, buried under mounds of snow; it will not be unearthed until spring. The evergreen trees embrace the snow in their needles, where they lie heavy from the weight.
What I see in Mia as we continue along our journey is a straighter posture, her eyes more attuned to the outdoors, not a glassy-eyed look like I’ve seen in the past, but an awareness and an interest.