Excerpt

Sam,

The last time we spoke on the phone, you asked me why I did not want to settle down. Why it is I seem so unsatisfied with the dreams of others and with the life you feel certain you could provide for us. I have come up with an answer which may explain, at least in part, why I feel this way.

You see, I have never considered myself like others, having always lived in a world of my own choosing. Seeking lifelong friends and making commitments to them has never really been an important part of my life. When I was a child, I wanted only to be left alone and not molded into someone else’s notions of how I should or should not live. I was pushed and pulled in whatever direction adults decided to steer me in. I became overwhelmed in a world I felt little prepared to deal with, and so when I was old enough, I left “their” world in search of my own. I was fifteen.

I suppose you can imagine the rest. What trouble I found myself in was of my own making, and I have no one to blame for the results of such actions but me. I cannot tell you how difficult those years were, other than to say that the consequences of such careless behavior still ripple across my psyche. Perhaps these shadows are the reason I find it so difficult to embrace the idea of building relationships even now.

I spent the next ten years wandering around doing my level best to destroy myself. It wasn’t until 1987 did I realize such reckless behavior was not only dangerous but intolerable. This was when I decided to make an attempt at growing up. I was twenty-six. Since then, I have changed many areas of my life, but some things have proven harder to give up than others. I am speaking of course of my restlessness, my inability to settle down. I am still, and perhaps always will be, a nomad.

In my solitary existence, I am but a drifter. I am only now starting to see in myself signs that suggest this status may never change. My live and let live, refusal to vote, fear of settling down attitude, speaks of my inability to accept responsibility as a member of ordinary society. I am forever anticipating what awaits me around the next curve or beyond the distant mountains, and it keeps me from putting down roots and making for myself some place in this world. I think that I should never find what I am looking for, since in the possession of such a dream I may only find disappointment. What then are we without our dreams of a place not yet discovered, not yet explored? I have never actually put a name on what it is that drives me or what it may be that keeps me from wanting what others seek. The idea of having a home, husband, children and stability, is as alien to me as the very dreams of others. At times I am filled with a deep longing for just such a life, but am often reminded how ill-prepared I am for such a common existence. Were I to settle for someone else's dreams, would necessitate the relinquishment of my own. I am not suited for the lives of others anymore than they are to mine.

I do not wish to hurt you, Sam. But I am afraid if I give into your notions for our future, I may eventually do just that. I do not know what awaits me. I have no idea when, or even if, I shall ever settle down. Please understand, though, what I have found in Talkeetna is as close to my dreams as I have ever been. It is possible I have finally found the place of my choosing, and maybe it is only a matter of time before I come home again. Perhaps in my heart I already have.’

After she had written the letter, she sat there trying to remember why she was confessing this to him. Before Sarah had even put her name to the page, she ripped it up and tossed it into the little blue trash can sitting in the foot well on the passenger side. Feeling suddenly claustrophobic, she climbed down out of the truck and walked around the truck stop for a few minutes. It occurred to Sarah that she was allowing herself to care far more for Sam than perhaps she should. She found herself wanting him to know things about her life she never felt comfortable sharing with anyone else. She went into the restaurant, sat down at the counter, and ordered a hot cup of tea. She drank it slowly, listening to the varied conversations all around, and felt an emptiness begin to close in on her. She wondered at the life she had chosen for herself. She thought about the letter she had almost sent and wanted for one fleeting moment to know what it would be like if she gave into Sam’s plans for them and the life they could share.

How Sarah longed to be a part of someone’s inner circle instead of always being on the fringe. She entertained the notion of perhaps being the nucleus of some man’s life and the reason behind his every smile. She wanted to be important to someone else, to perhaps find a man who would treat her as though his life meant nothing without her. Sam could be very much like that, she thought. He treated her as if she were his other self, an extension of who he was. Suddenly she was overtaken with the desire to see him again. To hear his voice and to know all of his attention was focused on her alone. After sitting at the counter through a second cup of tea, she paid the waitress and walked outside.

Sarah climbed back into the truck and emptied the trash can of the letter. In the fading light of a cold winter’s day, Sarah painstakingly rewrote the letter word for word. She signed it, stuffed it into the envelope, then stamped and sealed the envelope and mailed the letter before she could again change her mind.

It was forty-five hundred miles, from the truck stop in Chattanooga, Tennessee to where Sam sat at his desk in Talkeetna, Alaska. He was staring out the window when Katie entered his office and laid upon his desk the letter Sarah wrote.

He looked at the envelope for a moment before leaning across the desk to pick it up. He turned it over to look at the back of the envelope, then turned it over again. He looked at the postmark, then looked at the handwriting. Lastly he folded the envelope in half and slipped it into his shirt pocket.

Twenty minutes had passed, but still he could not take his mind from off the letter. He pulled it out of his shirt pocket and unfolded it carefully. His fingers shook slightly and he looked at them for a moment wondering as to what this might betray. He tore open the envelope, unfolded the pages and began to read. He read slowly, as if to savor her words, as if to capture the mood of the writer, then he read it again a second time. He placed the letter on the desk and stared at it for a long moment, then leaned back into his chair and rocked in pensive silence.

Sarah had revealed more about herself in the letter than she had ever shared with him before, and he wondered as to what this might mean. She had been alone quite literally all of her life: not just since she had become an adult, but ever since she had been a child. She did not often speak about the past, even though he knew there existed for her a great deal of pain hidden within her memories. Still, he wondered, what would cause a young girl to pull away from the very people she should have been able to trust. He wondered at the things her eyes had seen. At the hurt, her very core had suffered. She often spoke of walking through the fire and of the continuous testing of one’s strength, and he wondered at the courage this woman possessed.

Yet in light of all she had revealed, there remained one paradox. She was as friendly and outgoing as anyone he had ever known. Why, then, if she so obviously enjoyed the attention of others, did she seek out solitude with such fervor? It made no sense to him. Perhaps it never would.