Broken Road (7 page)

“This interview is over!”
 

Meagan McGuinnis nodded clicking her pen against her shiny teeth.

“For now.” She agreed, picking up her things off the chair and heading for the door.
 
It was then that Brenda realized that everyone had left. The tired production assistant, the disheveled cameraman, even the bulky equipment and the concierge cart with the pitcher of ice water were gone. She stood in the middle of the room watching Meagan McGuinnis walk the 10 feet to the door as if it were the runaway of a Paris fashion show. Swish, swish, and sway.
 

“Think about my offer.” The reporter’s voice carried across the empty room. Then, giving her a final nod and a wink she turned off the lights leaving Brenda alone in the dark.

She had canceled the interview with Sandra Simmons the
very
next day. To say the journalist was displeased was an understatement. At least that was the loud and distinct impression she got from Simmons’ assistant.
 
But what could she do? Everything was falling down around her. Shane was gone, Jon refused to go away and her son Callan refused to acknowledge her presence when they were in the same room. To make matters worse, Meagan McGuinnis, a reporter aspiring to be the next Sandra Simmons, had threatened to expose it all on national tv.
 
Shane’s memory would be tarnished, Jon’s career would be over and she would lose the love and respect of her sons. How could she allow herself to be used as the weapon that would destroy anymore lives? Her mother was right. It was time to go but where? She looked through the shutters in the family room and saw another two media vans were parked on the opposite side of the street. She panicked for a moment wondering if Meagan McGuinnis was hiding in one of them. If what the reporter had said was true and she refused to give her the interview she could very well spread the story herself. But if it was also true that other news outlets had similar leads then it was only a matter of time before the story of her relationship with Jon exploded into the headlines. Then what would she do? How could she protect Callan and Taylor then?
 
The only choice she had was to go and wait until the rumors died down and maybe, just maybe went away. She had wanted to warn Jon about Meagan McGuinnis but she knew that any additional contact between them would only serve to solidify any rumors. Instead, she had kept her distance, ignored the phone calls he made, and pretended she wasn’t home when he came to the door. Brenda was sure that the reporter was probably keeping track of all of Jon’s efforts to contact her, but she wasn’t about to hand Meagan McGuinnis anything for free. If she wanted it so badly she was going to have to scrounge in the dirt to get it. She stepped away from the shutters and thought for a moment. There was some place to go where maybe McGuinness and Simmons wouldn’t follow.
 
Brenda ran upstairs and went to her dresser.
 
In the top drawer she remembered there was a thick manilla envelope full of papers given to her by their family lawyer only the week before.
 
Among them there would be a deed and a map that had been passed down to Shane from his grandparent’s estate after the passed away and he enlisted in the service.
 
Now that Shane was gone the deed, to which Shane had added her name, and the fragile yellowing map belonged to her. It had been a very long time since she had looked at it. Years.
 
If she remembered correctly the deed was to an old farmhouse that belonged to his grandparents.
 
She guessed that the map showed the property lines. She couldn’t help but feel a wave of sadness as she looked at both the map and deed. It had been Shane’s dream to return to the little town in Nebraska where his grandparent’s had lived, to restore the house where he had spent so many of his summers and to make it a place for his own sons to do the same. But in all of the time they had been married she had never been to that town or in that house. She couldn’t even remember the name. Like many of the promises they had made to each other over the years it was one more that would never be kept. She sat on the bed holding the two documents in
 
her hand. Sooner or later she would have to decide what to do with the house and the land that sat almost 1000 miles away.
A thousand miles away from all of this!
Brenda was starting to warm up to the idea. She could use some time to clear her head, to make decisions to find her way back to her life and her boys. But who knew what she would find there after so many years? The house could be in shambles and the property overgrown. They’d never really thought about it. In addition, what guarantee did she have that Meagan McGuinnis, Sandra Simmons or any other meddling reporter wouldn’t come looking for her anyway? She went to the mirror and coiled her fingers around the long strands of blonde hair she’d spent five years growing out. These would have to go and changing the color would be imperative. But she’d do it all herself in order to escape being discovered.
 
She sighed. Running away like this was a risk wasn’t it?
Running away
. Is that what she was doing? What other choice did she have? Slowly, she opened the map again fingering the small typeset lettering that spelled out the name of the town where the house and property could be found. The town was called Bess. A tiny town in the middle of nowhere far from Meagan McGuinnis and Jon Procter. It was perfect.

The day Riley Favreau returned from Iraq it was hot.
It figures
, he thought. But at least, he wouldn’t sweat through his uniform. He was glad he was wearing civilian clothing and that he’d thought to dress for comfort. He sighed as he looked out the small airplane window. That wasn’t the real reason that he was dressed as a civilian.
 
It was also a good way to hide while he was traveling.
 
It had worked for the most part as he’d made his way through the different airports. No one seemed to recognize him and no one came up to him or followed him. There were no reporters or tv cameras following him everywhere he went like before. No one trying to take his picture to post on Facebook or Instagram. No one trying to take a selfie with him without asking. He sighed once more. They had been on the tarmac for about 40 minutes now and he still sat in his seat.
 
All of the other passengers had left as soon as the seatbelt light had gone off and retrieved their bags, briefcases and other luggage.
 
They were all in a hurry to get back or to get going somewhere else.
 
Riley had no desire to do either.
 
He preferred to stay exactly where he was.
 
He sighed again and ran a hand through what was left of his fade.
 
He wondered what waited for him on the other side of the doors once he stepped out of the plane.
 
He shuddered inwardly.
 
He could imagine it because he had been running from it for the last 2 months.
 
From the moment he had woken up in the hospital he had been besieged with requests for interviews, by email, by
 
phone, by blog, in person and via video conference. He had turned down requests from all of the major news networks, several international newscasts and even the local news station back home.
 
He simply had no desire to talk about it.
 
But they were persistent.
 
They offered him money, among other things, in exchange for a few minutes of his time and of course his exclusive story. It had blown his mind how much attention he was getting and it had taken him almost a full week in the hospital before he remembered why everyone wanted to talk to him.
 
Then when he did remember, he wanted to forget it. After a few more minutes of staring out of the window the stewardess approached him.

“Hi.” She said softly.
 
Riley turned to her and she smiled.
 
He wondered if she knew who he was.
 
He couldn’t help wondering that if he had been anybody else, he would have been kicked off long ago.
 

“They’re waiting for you.” She said. His heart sank but he wasn’t surprised.
 
She knew who he was after all.
 
Maybe the clothes hadn’t done as much for him as he had thought.
 

“Really?” he asked her.

“I guess they’ve been here for hours.” She said.

“Oh.”

 
The plane had been delayed in Atlanta for more than three hours due to a rain deluge that blanketed the city and grounded all air traffic.
 
But it was obvious, Riley thought sadly, that the rain never made it back to Nebraska.
 
There wasn’t a drop of moisture or a hint of clouds anywhere.
 
Nothing but clear blue sky and a bright, hot sun.
 
Dammit
, he thought.
 
He started to get up but she made no real effort to move out of his way.
 
She seemed nervous. So, he stood there half sitting half standing unsure as to what he should do next. That’s when she finally spoke.

“I. . .I. . .just wanted to say that it has been a pleasure to serve you during this flight.
 
I didn’t want to bother you during the flight, but I just wanted to say how touched I was by what you did.
 
My brother is serving in Iraq. I’d like to think that if something happened to him, that someone would do for him what you did for the other solider. What you did . . .well, it was just so brave.
 
I mean. . .you could have died but you went back and you. . . well, it was incredible and I wanted to let you know.”

Riley made an effort to smile.
 
This wasn’t the first time he’d been stopped by someone. He was never quite sure what he should say because he really didn’t want to talk about his own story.
 
He just mostly wanted the whole thing to go away.
 
But what could he do?
 
He had been involuntarily immortalized and frozen in time in a photograph taken at the precise moment he would have done anything to escape from the hell that surrounded him.
 
But instead the opposite had occurred.
 
He had been shoved up and out onto the world stage. He couldn’t go anywhere without someone knowing his name or alluding to what he had done.
 
He had become the poster boy for some patriotic movement that swept the country and forced him into the spotlight, something he had tried to avoid his entire life.
 
Now there was no escaping it.
 
The stewardess still stood there, tears glistening in her eyes, her little American flag lapel pin shining in the bright sunlight coming throw the window seat.
 
Riley attempted a smile again and said what he said to everyone that stopped him.

“Thank you.” He said and this time as he moved toward the aisle the stewardess moved out of the way to let him pass.
 
He opened the top luggage bin and took out his duffel bag.
 
He made his way to the front of the plane and turned to exit.
 
He heard it as soon as he stepped into the light.
 
The roar of the crowd and the loud rhythmic oom pa pas of the local high school band threw themselves at him.
 
There were hundreds of people surrounding the little plane, some holding signs of welcome, others holding children who were holding signs of welcome and some with his name and the words
A Real American Hero
spelled out in magic marker and glitter glue.
 
People were waving their arms at him and there was a flash frenzy as people strained to take his picture with their cell phones and digital cameras.
 
The high school band started in on their rendition of Lee Greenwood’s ‘God Bless The U.S.A.’ while a group of school children released red, white, and blue balloons.
 
Riley just stood there.
 
It was surreal and it was the last thing he wanted.
 
But if he had learned anything over the last 2 months it was that what he wanted wasn’t often what other people cared about.
 
They had their own agendas, their own plans.
 
There was a stage set up nearby and there was a red carpet rolled out from the tarmac, leading straight to it. He sighed again.
 
The screaming continued, the clapping was persistent and the band played its heart out.
 
Over all of it, Riley scanned the enormous crowd looking for just one person.
 
He felt the tears well up in his eyes, threatening to spill over right then and there in front of all those strangers.
 
So, he pulled out his army issue sunglasses, put them on and descended the small stairs carrying his duffel bag.
 
The crowd reached out to touch him and pressed dangerously hard against the ropes set up by local law enforcement.
 
It kept most people within fingertip distance, but it didn’t stop the Sheriff’s deputies and police officers from giving him congratulatory slaps on the back as he walked quickly through the throng of well -wishers and patriots.
 
When he reached the end of the gamut he saw his fiancée Misty Langston, his best friend Brandon Cole and his grandfather EJ Favreau were waiting for him.

“Riley!” Misty yelled out but Riley walked right past her and Brandon. He dropped his duffel bag, took off his sunglasses and walked straight into the arms of the man standing next to them. He clung tightly to the elderly man dressed in a pair of worn overalls and a clean, white, long sleeve shirt. They held on to each other as the elderly man cried.
 
EJ Favreau was the only father he had ever known and the two had grown closer after his mother died leaving him to be raised by his grandparents.