then sit on the edge of the bed and listen to the hum of the highway outside my window. The noise is loud, and it rolls into the room like the sound of an angry sea.
I reach down to take off my shoes, and my ribs scream at me. I bite down hard against the pain, and once it passes, I inch back on the bed and lie down.
There is a thin brown water stain on the ceiling. I look away and think about Diane, wondering what she’s thinking and if she’s okay. Part of me wants to stay awake to talk to her, but it’s impossible to keep my eyes open.
After a while, I quit trying.
– 49 –
The next morning we wake up early and get back on the road. I drive, and Diane sits in the passenger seat with the map open on her lap. Outside, the day is bright and the air is clear, and the sun shines warm on my skin.
We reach the ocean that afternoon and stop for lunch at a seafood shack on the beach. We take our food out to sit on the sand and stare at the water.
I don’t eat right away, and Diane asks me what I’m thinking.
“This is a first for me.”
“What is?”
“This.” I point out at the blue water and the white waves. “I’ve never seen the ocean.”
“You’re kidding.”
I shake my head. “I’m not.”
Diane smiles, sets her food aside. “So, what do you think of it?”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Are you going to miss the mountains?”
“Probably, but I’ll adapt. How about you?”
“I won’t miss them.”
“You sound confident.”
“There’s a trick to never being homesick,” she says. “I learned it when I was a kid.”
“What’s that?”
Diane pauses, says, “Never have a home.”
We drive south for a few more hours, and the view changes from sandy beaches to rocky cliffs to palm forests, thick and green.
Eventually, we pass a sign for El Regalo.
Diane looks down at the map and says, “There should be a turn up here somewhere. Look for a road.”
“Don’t we need to go into town?”
She holds up the map and points to the line Doug traced for us to follow. “It’s before the town.”
I don’t argue, and when she tells me to turn, I do.
The road is unpaved, and a thick trail of dust lifts into the air behind us as we drive. We pass a line of one-level concrete houses with a group of children playing out front. They stop to watch us go by.
One little girl waves.
I wave back.
The road curves, and then the trees open and I see a haze of blue water in the distance.
“There’s the ocean,” I say. “The road ends.”
Diane doesn’t look up from the map. “There’s no address. His note says to turn left before we hit the beach, then look for the lawn jockey.”
I laugh.
Diane turns to me. “He’s not serious, is he?”
“What do you think?”
She shakes her head and mumbles to herself.
The road stops at a line of sand dunes just before the beach, and I turn left in front of a row of stone houses that stretch south along the water. They’re bigger than the concrete homes we saw on the way in, but not by much.
Diane says, “Is that it?”
She points to a two-level house with a small, sun-bleached statue out front. It’s a man wearing jockey boots and a riding cap and holding a rusted metal ring out in front of him.
“Has to be.”
There’s no driveway, so I pull off the road and park on the lawn. We get out of the SUV and stretch, staring at the house.
“Doesn’t look too bad.”
Diane crosses the lawn, past the jockey, and stops at the door. She turns the knob, locked, then walks around to the window. She looks inside, using her hands to shield her eyes from the sun.
“There’s furniture in here,” she says. “Are you sure this is the place?”
I look around at the other houses. None of them have lawn jockeys out front. I take the key Doug gave me from my pocket and say, “There’s only one way to find out.”
Diane steps aside, and I slide the key into the lock. It turns easily, and the door opens.
I look at Diane. “I guess this is the place.”
“It’s clean.” Diane crosses through the room. “When Doug said he hasn’t been down here in years, I was thinking the worst.”
“I should find the caretaker and tell him we’re here.” I take the letter Doug gave me before we left out of