Chapter 11 - New traditions
One year later, the snow came sideways off the high plains again and Interstate 25 closed again and the departures board in Cheyenne said the same red word: Cancelled.
It had not been magic. That was the first thing anyone who knew the Hollises would have told you. Walt's new valve worked, but the rest of him took its time. He walked with a cane now, a plain wooden one Ray had sanded smooth. He didn't weld anymore. His hands still reached for the work sometimes on their own, and then remembered there had been six weeks of cardiac rehab, a bad infection in February that put him back in the hospital for 9 days, and a stack of VA forms that had to be filled out three times because the first two got lost.
Caleb lived with his uncle Ray in Denver during the week because that was where the school was and the doctors and the counselor he saw every other Tuesday. On weekends, Ray drove him up to Cheyenne to stay with his grandfather. The family was half in one city and half in another. And some Sunday nights it hurt to drive away. Ray had slipped once in the spring. One bad night. He had called his sponsor before the second drink and then he had called his father and Walt had said, "Okay, tomorrow's a new count." Ray carried a different coin in his pocket now. It had a three on it.
And Caleb still checked things. The lock on the door at night, the stove knobs. Sometimes at 2:00 in the morning, Ray would hear small footsteps in the hall and find the boy standing over the bunk bed's empty lower bunk, as if making sure a grown-up hadn't gotten tired and disappeared. Some habits take longer than a year.
Martin Gray had not adopted anyone, rescued anyone, or bought anyone a house. Once a month on a Saturday, he drove a van for a volunteer program that took veterans to their medical appointments. He didn't write the program a check, at least not at first. He drove. He learned the names of the men and women he picked up. He learned which ones liked the radio and which ones liked the quiet, and he waited in the parking lot until they came out every time, no matter how long it took. And on the first day of every month, an envelope arrived at his office in Denver. Inside was a $20 bill and a note in shaky capital letters: "Payment 11. Payment 12." Martin kept every note in a drawer.
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That December, Walt was due for his one-year check at the VA, and he had insisted, for reasons he wouldn't explain, on starting the trip from the Cheyenne bus station. Martin was driving him down in the van. Ray and Caleb were meeting them there. Then the snow came and the road closed. And the four of them ended up on the blue plastic benches by the heater. The same benches with Mavis Dugen behind the counter and the clock on the wall still running 2 minutes fast. "31 years," Mavis said, "never fixed it. I'm not starting now."
Things at the station had changed a little. Above the cafe counter, there was a handlettered sign now. It said, "Soup's always made too much. Just ask." Mavis had put it up in January and paid for the extra pot herself. And when Martin had tried to give her money for it, she told him to go sit down. The volunteer van program had added a new stop that spring, too. If a veteran was stranded at the Cheyenne station on the way to an appointment, someone would come. Nobody would sit in those chairs alone and wait.
