1
The dull hum of the garage door sounded. Luke was home. Talie looked up from the books and papers spread across her kitchen table. She might have been tempted to stay up all night reading, but not now. Welcoming her husband home was the only thing she liked about his occasional business trips.
As the door from the garage opened, Talie stood to greet her husband. “Welcome home!”
He moved to put his briefcase in its usual spot, but finding the table covered with the memorabilia Talie had been studying, he settled it on a nearby chair.
“Hey,” he said, taking her into his arms and kissing her.
Amazing how even after four years of marriage her heart still twirled at such a thing, especially when he gazed at her afterward. She read nothing but pure love in his lively blue eyes.
“Good to be home.” He scanned the adjacent family room.
Talie guessed he was looking for the baby. “I tried to keep Ben awake, but he crashed about twenty minutes ago.” She grinned. “You can probably get reacquainted around two in the morning, though.”
“Has he been up a lot while I was gone?”
She nodded.
Luke shrugged broad shoulders out of his suit coat. “I’ll look in on him when we go up.”
“How did everything go on your trip?”
“Better than I expected. They offered me the job.”
“They did!” Talie hugged him, then pulled away. “Why didn’t you tell me when you called earlier?”
“I wanted to see your face.” He kissed her, studying her again afterward. “And it was worth the wait.”
Pride for him mushroomed from deep inside, spreading up and out through her smile. Once, before she’d met Luke, before other dreams had taken its place, she’d had a career vision of her own. Going up through the ranks of the education trail, from teacher to department head to curriculum director, from assistant principal to principal and on to superintendent. Now, seeing Luke’s dreams going forward, she tasted vicarious living but, amazingly enough, didn’t miss those old aspirations for herself. She was living a new kind of dream, one she wouldn’t trade for anything.
“Congratulations, Mr. Architectural Engineering Director. When do you start?”
“Right away. I move into my new office tomorrow. They want me to restructure the department, so I’ll probably have to hire a couple of new people.”
“We’ll have to celebrate. Get a babysitter, out to dinner—the works.”
Luke loosened his tie and went to the refrigerator. As incredible as he looked in a suit, she knew he far preferred jeans and a T-shirt. He grabbed a Coke. “What went on around here while I was gone?”
“Jennifer down the street is starting a playgroup for the kids in the neighborhood. I’m taking Ben tomorrow.”
“Sounds good. How many kids?”
“Five—all of them born last year like Ben.”
He took a gulp of soda. “Did you have a good time at your mom’s? Get a lot done?”
Talie turned back to the table. “The garbageman is going to hate her on Tuesday, but the house looks great. I think she’ll be ready to list it any day now. Look here. . . .” She held up the family Bible she’d been looking at before he arrived. “This is the treasure we found among all the trash.”
“What is it?”
“A Bible that belonged to my dad’s grandmother. I have a whole box of things that must have been hers. The letters are wonderful. Letter writing is a lost art now that everyone has e-mail. And look at this. I think it’s a journal.”
She picked up the smooth, leather-bound book. It was tied closed with a ribbon. “I’m almost afraid to touch it—the binding is cracked. It’s all so incredible.” Talie sighed, looking at all of the things strewn on the table. “This is like a call back, Luke.”
He looked from the journal to her. “Call back?”
She nodded, her heart twisting from missing her dad. “When I was a kid our family would take driving vacations. On that first day we’d get up at three in the morning to miss rush hour traffic around Chicagoland. We’d all fall back asleep, but that’s what Dad liked—to drive in the quiet. Sometimes, though, I’d sit up front with him. He used to say I was helping by keeping him company. I knew he didn’t really need help. He just wanted me to feel useful.”
Unexpected tears welled in her eyes. “He liked it when he could see taillights ahead. Not too close, just up the road.” Instead of the kitchen table in disarray she saw a pair of round, red lights gleaming from an invisible dark road ahead. “He used to tell me that was his call back. The car ahead called back that the road was still there, free and clear for him to follow.”