Moon Over Manifest

So the Rattler was still at large.

Remember When entries kept coming in. One surprising entry read

Remember the waterlogged victory quilt? Most people don’t know that it was dried and returned to Mrs. Eudora Larkin with a handwritten apology from Ned Gillen and his friend Jinx. They both signed their names in the middle square, right over President Wilson’s washed-out signature. It was a lovely gesture and that quilt has been on my divan all these years. But I’m passing it along to a young lady in the care of Shady Howard who has helped us remember who we are and where we come from.

Pearl Ann (Larkin) Hamilton

But it was Heck Carlson who won the Remember When contest. His entry read

Remember when Manifest seemed a place too far away to ever get back to? A place too good to be real. A place one was proud to call home. Remember? For those of us who made it home, let us always remember. And for those who didn’t come home, let us never forget.

But a question remained: where was my home? Lettie finally asked what we’d all been avoiding. “Abilene, what are you going to do?”

I hadn’t known for sure until I happened to take a closer look at the book I’d accidentally stolen from the high school and had yet to return. For weeks it had sat on my nightstand, apparently waiting patiently to be noticed. And then I noticed it. It was Moby Dick, the book Sister Redempta had mentioned when I’d quoted Gideon’s saying about home. The same quote Ned had written in his last letter. It is not down in any map; true places never are.

I paged through it for a while, looking for those words. I haven’t found them yet, as I’ve got about six hundred pages still to go. But I did find something else. The checkout card taped in the front of the book. There were names that went way back. There was one date stamp: September 12, 1917. Beside it, in a familiar hand, was the name Ned Gillen. And he must have read the whole thing, as he’d checked it out two more times after that.

But it was the next name that made my eyes well up. March 6, 1918—Gideon Tucker. I had found him. I’d found my daddy. And I would find him again.

The morning of August 30 came. It was overcast as the 9:22 chugged into the depot. Lettie and Ruthanne, one on each side of me, walked me to the train station. I wore a pretty lavender smock that Mrs. Evans had made for me out of an old dress that had belonged to her daughter, Margaret. Mrs. Evans said it complemented my auburn hair and hazel eyes. I didn’t even know my hair was auburn.

Lettie squeezed my hand. “Are you sure about this, Abilene?”

“I’m sure,” I said as the train hissed a steamy sigh. I held tight to my satchel that held the cigar box of mementos and letters.

“You sent him a telegram, didn’t you?” asked Ruthanne.

“I did. It was a little vague.”

“Then maybe we should all go back to Shady’s place,” Lettie pleaded.

One after another, travelers started to get off the train. Charlotte Hamilton, Miss Beauty Parlor, pranced her way down the steps and looked at me a little aghast. “Are you still here?”

I just smiled as her mother called from down the platform. I wasn’t too worried about Charlotte Hamilton, daughter of Pearl Ann Larkin Hamilton and granddaughter of Mrs. Eugene Larkin, and likely future president of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She came from good stock and she would come around.

Then it appeared that all who were getting off had gotten off. Ruthanne and Lettie looked at me, apparently not knowing what to say.

“Maybe he didn’t get the telegram,” said Ruthanne.

“That’s right. He’ll probably be on tomorrow’s train,” said Lettie.

“No. He won’t be on tomorrow’s train,” I said, staring off down the tracks in the direction the train had just come from. Then, as if those tracks were calling me, I took off running. I felt on solid ground again, hearing the rhythm of my feet pounding against each railroad tie. I made it clear past the shot-up Manifest town sign before I saw him. Anyone worth his salt knows it’s best to get a look at a place before it gets a look at you.

He was walking toward me, one railroad tie after another, as if he’d spent the whole summer getting back to me. He looked thin; his clothes hung a little baggy. I knew he’d gotten my telegram. It was probably not that convincing a con but I guess I was banking on the hope that he missed me. The truth is I wasn’t sure he would come. I knew he loved me and he’d only left me because he’d thought it was for the best. But for now he was here. Would he stay?

He walked toward me like a man in a desert, looking afraid that what he saw before him might be a mirage that would vanish when he got closer. I stepped up to him, closing the gap, and at last he knelt down and took me in his arms. He held his face next to mine, and when he looked straight into my eyes with tears in his, I knew. And he knew. We were home.