Ledman Pickup

Twenty One

When Leonora woke up in the morning, everything seemed strange. It took her a few moments to even remember where she was, and how she got there. It had been so late at night, and she had been so tired, that she hadn't had a good look at the place and now that she did, she felt a little sad. She could hear that Sarah and Saya were in the kitchen, talking quietly, probably so as not to disturb her. She could hear the sound of their voices but could not make out the words. It didn't matter. The two were a family in their own little home. Everything about the living room also said 'home', from the child-made drawings displayed proudly on the walls, to the collection of pony paraphernalia strewn about the place. The photos on top of the small, old TV were all of Saya at various ages with no trace of any parents.

Saya's talk of her missing father had stirred up a bunch of emotions that Leonora did not want to deal with, from thoughts of her long-lost mother to memories of her father, whom she hadn't visited in months and felt guilty about. It occurred to her that with her new brain, as she referred to it, she might be able to track her mother down somehow. Facts like those seemed to be coming unbidden to her mind but in this case there was nothing. She squeezed her eyes shut together and wished, but no data at all arrived. This too was odd. Over the past two days she had felt a constant stream of something flowing through her and now there was radio silence on that frequency.

She knew the polite thing to do would be to go into the kitchen and thank Sarah and Saya for their hospitality, but she was afraid they would offer her something they clearly could not afford to. Taking a deep breath, she got up from the couch as silently as she could, tip-toed to the front door, slowly opened it with a sense of relief when it didn't squeak, and then hurried outside and up the street. She recalled that the house was not far from the river, the river she had apparently come to see for no apparent reason. She walked towards it, seeing the map clearly in her mind. For a large river, it was a disappointment, just a bunch of water as far as she could tell. Why she had expected it to be more, she couldn't say.

There was a bench beside a jogging path so she sat down and stared across at the other bank. She usually enjoyed this kind of thing. She would sit back, smoke a jay, enjoy the sunshine and the wide open space, but now there was a subtle difference. She wasn't quite the same person anymore. Where before she had no qualms, no doubts, no goals, no obstacles, where she had been free and easy and almost always happy, almost always laughing, now she felt incomplete, that she couldn't rest without a plan. A plan. She almost laughed now at the thought. When had she ever wanted or needed a plan? What was the point of that? You go on, you do your thing, que sera sera and all of that.

'First things first', she thought. 'A plan, beginning with the end in mind. What are we trying to accomplish here? If you don't know where you're going, you'll probably wind up somewhere else. Expected results, and then define the steps, and then you take it one thing at a time, with first things first.'

It seemed pretty obvious. This is how one should proceed with any endeavor. But she had no end in mind. She wasn't trying to accomplish anything. What was it that Saya had asked her? What do you want to do with your life? And she had no answer to that one. What was it that had brought her here? She thought she had had a plan. Something about Green Bay, and then Grand Island in between. One step at a time, wasn't that it? So how do we get to Green Bay from here? And why are we going to Green Bay? And who is "we" and why am I thinking this way?

Green Bay was gone. It wasn't even a notion anymore. It meant nothing. That goal, whatever it meant, no longer was. Then what was 'the end' now? Well, she thought, if I don't know what the big picture is, maybe I can do a smaller one, like breakfast. That could be the goal for now, and the next step is to decide where to go and what to have. The step after that? Go there and have that! She could see, a few blocks down along the river, the unmistakable towering logo of a Burger Joint. As good a place as any, she decided, and she got up and headed that way.