My mother appeared at the door, brought me into the house, and went about normalizing things. It was Christmas day, after all. I sat down to proudly show my mother pictures of my travels, photos of the inglês, in his Indian shirt looking, I now realized as I saw him through their eyes, like a cross between a pig farmer and a dope dealer. She studied the pictures without saying a word and then went to the table, already set for 11—the whole family, minus me.
My mother added a place setting and turned my attention to the turkey on the counter, trussed and ready for the oven. Did I think five hours would be enough? We gazed at the bound bird and I tasted her dressing. No one said a thing about the fact that I had disappeared off the face of the earth or that my mother had been worried for weeks.
I couldn’t see what I had done wrong. My carelessness eluded me. I was only miffed that my prodigal-daughter surprise didn’t go over the way I had hoped.
But Christmas is nothing if not a set of small rituals, and these eventually salvaged the day. My mother made it clear that I was welcome, although now that I had crossed the border into her country, I would do well to put my alarming photographs away and observe the local customs instead.
I picked up a small knife and began to peel potatoes. Meanwhile, my father passed through the kitchen, cracking his knuckles in vexation and relief,working hard to forgive me.
When I reach the top of the hill above Alportel, the white house is still there, but it’s been turned into three lavish rental units. An English couple in their sixties is staying in one; when they see me peering through the slats of the gate, they graciously invite me in. The man has a long white beard, like a hobbit, and the woman is tiny, tanned to a walnut colour, and wearing a bikini. I tour the house,where the huge blackened hearth in the kitchen is the same as I remember. So is the feel of the undulating, rosy tiles underfoot. The courtyard where the lemon and almond trees used to grow is now occupied by a swimming pool. The ledge at the back of the wall has been removed.
They are friendly and offer me a cocktail, but I say I don’t want to drive the mountain roads after dark.
On my way back, I swirl into the parking lot of the Alte hotel and ding another car with my mirror. There’s no damage, just a scratch on mine I will have to pay for. I log onto the computer one last time and find a brief email from Casey. He’s taking a break in Puebla, he writes, and plans to meet up with two friends from Montreal who are biking their way down the Mexican coast. He’ll ride with them a while, then gradually make his way back north. His hard travels seem to be behind him for now.
I buy a can of silver spray paint in town, a challenge to my Portuguese vocabulary. It covers the scratch on the mirror perfectly. Then I splurge on a phone call home to ask Brian to meet my flight. The sound of his voice steadies me. This is not a custom of ours, to pick each other up at the airport. We are very independent in our habits. In some ways, even after all these years we’re still learning how to be a couple.
AMONTH OR TWO after I got back to Toronto, Casey flew home from Las Vegas with his bike in a box. His hair was wild and his eyes were very blue. Whiffs of the ocean and the desert came off him. Somewhere on the road, in a pay phone, he had applied and been accepted for a job at a summer camp in Maine, leading canoe trips. More outside. More adventure.
And he thought he might go back to university in the fall after all. Maybe change his minor to environmental studies, cut back his course load a little.
That sounds good to us,we said.
There were a few weeks left before he had to be in Maine, so he stayed with us. Sometimes he would stay out with friends ’til 3 or 4 a.m., keeping Montreal hours, then biking home. I am a light sleeper. On those nights, I fell into a certain routine.
We go to bed shortly after midnight as usual. Then, around two,my eyes pop open. I can tell by the slant of the light in the hall that his bedroom door is still open. Not home yet. Never mind! Think of all the nights he’s been somewhere else, in Tucson or Tijuana or Montreal and you’re not around to worry about him showing up, I chastise myself. He’s in his twenties now, I remind myself, not a little boy lost in the mall; he could be driving a tank in Afghanistan. God, imagine that. (I do.)
Brian sleeps on, unperturbed, beside me. Then I think about a friend of ours, a psychotherapist with a son Casey’s age still living at home; she told me that she can’t help it, she stays awake ’til he gets home too. It’s like we’re soldiers with post-traumatic syndrome, who get triggered by harmless but familiar situations.
Three a.m. Was he wearing his helmet? I feel ridiculous, mothering away in the dark, for no good reason. Should I avail myself of the little blue crumbs of Ativan in the drawer by the bed? No, let’s wait a bit. Maybe the paperman will drive by earlier than usual— his muffler is shot so I know that sound too—and I can read the Globe.
I don’t think I have the telephone numbers of any of his Toronto friends. Alex, Tom, and Rhys. Rhys who?
Then I hear the chunnng of the wrought-iron fence closing and the front door unclasping. The delicate tick of the road bike being wheeled in. The fridge door opens, and closes, followed by his cautious steps on the stairs, adult and thoughtful.
The hall light goes off.
Now I can sleep.
Two years after our simultaneous journeys, I began to put together some notes for this book. But the chronology of events had faded, so I asked Casey to map out his itinerary for me. Also, had he thought more about why he wanted to take off and travel in the first place?
This is part of what he wrote back:
“Hitting the road was a bit of a shot in the dark. I knew I wanted a change and a new experience, but I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Part of it was a rejection of ‘the establishment,’ whatever that was. I’ve always had a chip on my shoulder about schooling and jobs and institutions. So I decided to get away and do something that wasn’t tied to any of these things. The freedom was exhilarating. Every bus stop and overpass and skyline seemed unbelievably real and vivid.
“One thing I noticed is that the farther from home you get, the more your differences stick out. I was a bit of an odd character in New Mexico but I really stuck out in Guatemala. I realized I would always be having the experience of a gringo, no matter how far I travelled. I began to notice how I must have appeared to people in the middle of their own regular lives. I was a dirty, aimless white kid hundreds of miles away from his family and friends. I was going nowhere in particular, for no apparent reason. In Mexico, especially, people often couldn’t understand why anyone would want to be away from their home and family.
“In Toronto, each adult person is, more or less, on their own. Not alone all the time, but when it comes down to the wire it’s sort of every man for himself. You go to school to succeed, and to make a life for yourself. People work at jobs, advance their careers, buy their own things, and support their own families. If you’re successful, it’s your achievement. If you fail, it’s your problem. The individual is the basic unit of social interaction. This puts a lot of pressure on the individual to succeed and to be an autonomous, fully functional member of society.
“In Latin America, from what I could see, the family was the basic unit of life, not the individual. People seemed to identify and understand themselves primarily according to their family, extended family, and community. It’s hard to say this and not sound clichéd, but family and community