Every week Desmond heard about another one of his friends who had lost their job or seen their company collapse. He felt for them. The memory of xTV’s sudden collapse and his days of pork and beans in the months after were still fresh in his mind. He did the only thing he could: he took folks out to lunch, always picked up the tab, and tried to connect people with jobs when he heard about them. Their stories were horrifying.
The layoffs were nerve-wracking affairs. Large groups would be led into conference rooms and told they were being let go; consultants handed out packets with details. In some cases, the consultants even surprised the HR people conducting the layoffs by handing them a folder with their walking papers too, right after the dismissals of everyone else.
The coffee shops that had teemed with bright-eyed entrepreneurs with the next big idea, written out on a napkin, were now packed with people working on their resumes, which they tweaked and proofread and scrutinized before printing them on thick paper stock so they would stand out. Startup execs who had been worth millions on paper found themselves broke, moving back in with their parents or in-laws. Many employees whose companies had gone public never made it past the lockup period to sell any of their shares before their companies folded.
Desmond watched it all in disbelief; it seemed the world had only two extremes: charging up the hill wide open, or free falling over a cliff.
He was in his own kind of free fall. Every month he grew less optimistic about his prognosis. The medication helped. So did the sessions with Dr. Jansen. But Desmond had plateaued. He wasn’t making any real progress.
Peyton was. He watched as she changed, little by little. She took pride in her schoolwork, was near the top of her class. She was blossoming, becoming an incredible woman. She was ready for something more. That worried him. He wondered if he could ever be the man she deserved.
Christmas 2000 came and went; they had a little tree in the home in Palo Alto Hills and kept up their tradition of ten dollars or less in gifts. Peyton cheated though: hers was a box with a model airplane inside.
“It’s great.”
“The airplane’s not the gift, Des.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Let’s go on a trip—back to Australia, to where you were born. Visit the remains of the home. Go to Oklahoma, where you grew up.”
He knew what she wanted: for him to visit the places that had caused him so much pain and somehow come to grips with what had happened and move on.
He agreed. He was desperate enough to try anything.
In Australia, he walked across the paddocks where he’d once played. He visited the thicket where he’d built the fort that day, even straightened the overturned rocks he’d set down eighteen years ago. The house was still there, or at least its burned remains. He stood in the yard, inside the fence, where he’d rushed into the fire. There was no breakthrough. He didn’t cry. He felt only sadness.
They stayed in a hotel in Adelaide for a week while he tried to find Charlotte. But since Desmond didn’t know her last name, it was impossible to find her. Over a hundred thousand people had been part of the relief efforts in the wake of the 1983 bushfires. And it had been almost eighteen years; she might have left the area, or left Australia altogether.
In Oklahoma City, they rented a car and drove south, through Norman, then Noble, and finally onto Slaughterville Road.
He pulled off at the home where he’d grown up. Orville’s home. It had been part of a farm once, but the farmland had been sold, maybe by Orville himself or someone who’d owned it before him.
The new owners had painted the home and put on a new roof. The asphalt shingles sparkled in the clear April day. A Chevy truck and a Ford sedan sat under a newly erected metal carport. A red Huffy bike sat on the front porch. It was about the size of the one Desmond had bought at the pawnshop—the bike Orville had threatened to take away.
The shed stood open. The old Studebaker was gone. Desmond’s eyes lingered on the patch of ground where Dale Epply had bled to death while he held the lawnmower blade.
Peyton put an arm around him.
“You want to go in?”
“No. I’ve seen enough.”
They drove past the grocery store that had sustained him, up Highway 77 into Noble. The small town hadn’t changed much. They ate at a small cafe on Third Street and walked the three blocks to the library.
A girl a few years younger than Desmond sat behind the counter, a mechanical pencil in her hand, a large book open in front of her. Another University of Oklahoma student, if he had to guess.
“Help you?” she asked.
“Nah. Just looking.”
He walked down the fiction aisle, Peyton close behind him. He spotted a few of the paperbacks he’d read as a kid: Island of the Blue Dolphins, Hatchet, Hyperion. He could even remember where he was when he read them.
The place had barely changed. The only addition was a wooden study carrel in one corner. It held a Gateway computer with a seventeen-inch monitor. A plaque on the top of the carrel read, Pioneer Library System Technology Center Provided in Loving Memory of Agnes T. Andrews.
It was the best thing he’d ever read in that library.
He took Peyton’s hand.
“Let’s go home.”
Chapter 74
In the plane’s cockpit, Avery stared in disbelief. Spain was dark except for a few glimmering lights in what she thought was Barcelona. They’d launched no fighters to pursue the Red Cross plane. Air traffic control hadn’t even engaged her. She wondered what was going on down there and how many people were left.
On the navigation screen their destination loomed: the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland. She’d never heard of the place. She wondered what they’d find there, at the GPS coordinates Desmond had provided. On the satellite map, there was only a forest. Was it a trap? Avery feared that it was. But she had no choice.
She engaged the autopilot, stood, stretched her legs, and walked back into the passenger compartment. Desmond and Peyton lay in sleeping bags, both facing forward, Peyton tucked into Desmond like a little spoon.
Avery leaned against the door frame and stared. She’d have to make a decision soon. A hard one.