Page 26 of Here We Go Again

Joe thoughtfully strokes Odysseus’s ear. “I didn’t agree to that.”

“Excuse me?”

“I didn’t agree to your itinerary,” he says. “My death trip has detours.”

It’s not a death trip, she wants to scream. She can’t think of it that way. If she thinks about the fact that all that’s waiting for them at the end of this hellish journey is saying goodbye to Joe, she won’t be able to put one foot in front of the other, one mile marker behind the next.

“I’m dying, Rosemary,” Joe says breathlessly. “Are you really going to deny me a small detour?”

Logan throws her head back and laughs. “You’re really going to milk that for all it’s worth, aren’t you?”

Rosemary takes four deep breaths and clicks off the hazard lights. “Which way?”

“Right,” Joe says, and Rosemary turns right.

Chapter Eight

ROSEMARY

They take a winding road through the trees that climbs drastically until it curves into a parking lot, and Rosemary realizes where they are as a familiar shape comes into view. It’s a giant circular building made out of gray sandstone, with a darker gray dome reflecting atop it in the sunlight, the grandiosity entirely out of place in the middle of the woods. The building is surrounded by retaining walls, and Rosemary is immediately struck by a memory: Logan, thirteen, limbs stretched out like saltwater taffy, climbing up onto the retaining wall, balancing herself precariously as Rosemary begged her to come down.

“The Vista House.” Logan braces her hands on the dashboard and leans forward. “Damn, I haven’t been here in forever.”

Odysseus flings himself at the window with excitement, too, as Rosemary reluctantly pulls into a handicap parking space. “Why are we here, Joe?”

Logan doesn’t wait for an explanation. She grabs the red dog leash off the floor and hops out of the car. “Come on, buddy. You need to get out and stretch your legs.”

“It’s been forty-five minutes!” Rosemary shouts as she does anelegant slide out of the driver’s seat. When she comes around the passenger side, Logan is hooking the dog leash around the door handle. Then she climbs into the back of the van to begin the arduous process of getting Joe out of his comfortable lounge position and back into his wheelchair. The last thing she wants is to make Joe feel like a burden, because he’s not. He never could be. So she doesn’t complain as they transfer him. Neither does Logan.

After a few clumsy moments, they help Joe into his wheelchair, and Logan grabs the leash again, taking off up the path toward Vista House.

“I know you’re mad at me,” Joe says as she pushes his wheelchair over uneven cobblestones.

“I’m not mad at you.”

“Yet I can’t help but notice that you seem tense.”

“When, in the past eighteen years, have you seen menottense?”

Both his wheelchair and her heels get stuck in a groove, and she has to wiggle them free. “That’s what I’m saying, Rosie, darling. You seem tense, even by your standards.”

“I’m not.”

She realizes she’s clenching her jaw again and tries to relax it. “I just… I want to do this for you, Joe. Get you to Maine. You’ve done so much for me—so much forso many people—and I want to make sure you get your wish.”

“Part of my wish involves stopping at the Vista House.”

“Okay, but the quickest, safest way to get you to Maine is to plan our stops so you’re not getting in and out of the van unnecessarily and risking another fall.”Or worse.

“Who said I wanted safe?”

“You do want to get to Mainealive?”

Joe grunts as she gets his wheelchair stuck on another paver. “I do. But I don’t want to be so fixated on getting there that I miss this.”

They reach the edge of the retaining wall and the Columbia RiverGorge spills out in front of them. A blue, serpentine river disappearing on the horizons both east and west. Green hills hug the river’s north and boundaries, and the early morning sky is the palest, clearest blue, a proper Pacific Northwest June day. Sunny, with a few columns of clouds to remind you how rare it is.

“How could I miss the chance to say goodbye to this?” Joe asks.