The Passenger

"Does she know about the pregnancy?"

"No. I've only known a month or so."

"Did Sharon tell you that I'm not going straight there? It could be several months before we get to Washington. This is a once in a lifetime vacation for me."

"As long as we get there before the baby comes, I'm fine with that."

"You understand that I'm traveling in an RV? It's about the size of a bedroom. There will be no privacy and we'd be on top of one another most of the time."

At this point, Kelly bristled. "I won't sleep with you to get there."

"I'm not suggesting that you would. I'm just pointing out that the two of us would be living in what is basically a small one-room apartment and there's not much privacy."

"As long as you don't try anything, I can live with that."

"Excuse me for a minute while I talk with Sharon."

Kelly left the table and went back into the kitchen.

I asked Sharon, "Do you really think this will work? Is she going to freak out if I bump into her? Can she really think that living with a total stranger for months isn't going to be a problem?"

"Matt," she said, "that girl has bounced around this county for twelve years. She's had some terrible experiences, the sexual assaults being only the most recent. She's lived in situations I can't imagine and I live here. From where you sit, with your education and view of the world, I don't think you could guess how strong that girl is and how determined she is to get to Washington. If you'll take her, she'll stick with you until you get there."

"Why not just buy her a bus ticket and get her there in a few days?"

"She needs to learn that all men aren't like the foster dad. Mel and I both think you're a good man and spending time with you will help her realize that there are some good men in the world. We wouldn't ask if we didn't trust you."

"Can I think about it for a few minutes?"

"Sure. If it helps make your decision, Mel and I will pay you to take her there. She's worked hard here. We'd keep her around if the situation were different, but the local cops will just make her life a living hell if she stays."

"Sharon, money is the least of my concerns. I've got more than I'll ever need and from looking at her, she doesn't eat much. My worry is that she won't be able to deal with my meandering all over the countryside when she has a destination in mind."

"Please give her a chance. That's all we ask. If it doesn't work out, put her on a bus and send me the bill. I don't know you very well, but from what Mel and I have learned about you, we really think you would be good for her."

I thought about it for a few minutes. "How much stuff does she have? There isn't a lot of spare room in the motor home."

"Just a large gym bag and a box full of books."

"She's a reader?

"She reads constantly. It's her escape."

"OK. I'll take the chance. Where's her stuff?"

"It's in the back."

"Tell her to bring it around and I'll throw it in the car. We can drive over together to retrieve the RV."

"God bless you, Matt."

And with that, I added a passenger to the trip.

When we got to the RV dealer, I helped Kelly load her stuff into the RV. I cleaned out one of the three drawers that passed for clothing storage and told her to load her clothing in there. Whatever wouldn't fit, we'd put in the Camry and tow it behind us.

I watched her take her clothes out of the bag. Hard as it was to believe, the outfit she was wearing when we spoke was the best of what she had. I couldn't believe how worn everything looked. I stepped out of the RV and asked the dealer if I could leave it here for another hour or so while I did a bit of shopping. Then I asked Kelly to get in car so we could get a few things before we got on the road.

I drove over to the local Walmart and took Kelly inside with me. We headed to the women's clothing section. She looked at me, curious, but said nothing. "Kelly, I want you to pick out some clothing. If you're going to travel with me, you need to look like someone cares about you, not like some homeless person. Get at least three pairs of jeans, a week's worth of blouses and t-shirts, a jacket, and at least two dresses. And get yourself a week's worth of underclothes and socks. I usually do laundry once per week at one of the campground laundries. And don't forget a nightgown, robe and a bathing suit. You'll need that if you want to swim in the camp pools. When we're done here, we'll go get you some shoes, some flip-flops and a pair of hiking boots. You'll need them as well. After that, let's get you whatever makeup and shampoo you use and the necessary feminine hygiene products."

"I can't afford any of that."

"I didn't say you had to. This is on me. I want my passenger to be someone I can be proud of when she steps out of my RV."

For the first time since I met her, I saw the slightest glimmer of a smile. It brought tears to my eyes and I had to turn away.

To the items Kelly needed, we added some basic foodstuffs for the trip. I tended to cook most mornings and evenings, and either skipping lunch or having a piece of fruit. Given her pregnancy and her almost emaciated state, Kelly would need more food than I generally ate. I stocked up in anticipation of feeding her.

With our purchases complete, we retrieved the RV, hooked the Camry up to the tow bar and started down the road.

The next four months were a revelation to me. Between the trip with my parents and my job, I'd traveled extensively. Kelly had never been out of the county in which she'd been raised. I not only got to see the country, I got to see it through her eyes of wonder. She'd never even heard of many of the places we saw. The distances fascinated her. The scenery sometimes left her stuttering. Because we were avoiding the interstates and using secondary roads, we saw far more wildlife than we might otherwise have seen. She got so excited when she saw her first mule deer, her first antelope, her first elk and her first bison. The geysers of Yellowstone left her speechless. Devils Tower allowed me to explain how geology worked, something she'd never learned in high school. We hiked, fished, explored little museums, meandered though small towns, and generally took our time and looked at everything.

As the trip progressed, Kelly began to blossom. Part of it was simply good nutrition and the effects of the pregnancy. But I could also sense that she was healing mentally and emotionally. While we were traveling, we talked for hours. She watched the world pass by through the front windshield with a focus that I'd only seen previously when watching people engrossed in a television show or a movie. In the evenings after supper, we each read. She worked her way through the entire box of books she'd brought, then went looking in the little towns we stopped in for used bookstores to get more. I finally bought her a Kindle and showed her how to use it. I also bought her a cell phone, adding her to my service plan. She was over the moon.

Through all this time, she'd never once asked me why I was doing this for her. Finally, one night after we'd had a particularly pleasant day, she sat at our table and asked me to join her. "Why are you doing this for me, Matt? You haven't hit on me. You treat me like a queen and I'm just a homeless girl about to have a baby. What's the deal?"

I'd been expecting this question for a while and had given careful thought to the answer. "Kelly, as you know, I don't have any family. I don't have a girlfriend. My parents are dead. I have no brothers or sisters. I never married or had children. I haven't seen my cousins in almost twenty years and have no idea where they are or even if they're still living. Right now, you and that baby are the closest thing to a family I have. You're the daughter I always wanted and your child is the grandchild I never thought I'd have. I do what I do for you out of the same kind of love that I'd expect a parent to have for his child."

Kelly looked at me for a long moment, then jumped up and ran crying into the RV. After a minute or two, I followed her. "What's wrong? Did I say something I shouldn't have?"

"No. It's just that I've never had a father before. The kids in school always made fun of me for not having parents. Now here I am, four months into a trip I never expected to experience, with a man who tells me that he thinks of me as his daughter. Thank you, Matt. Thank you."

And with that, she jumped into my lap, wrapped her arms around me and hugged me, then rested her head on my chest.

At this point, Kelly was well into her seventh month, so I decided to head toward Fort Lewis so she could join her foster sister. We put the address into the map program and proceed to drive. A day later, we arrived at our destination.

I pulled the rig along the curb and Kelly jumped out, running to the front door. She rang the bell and a man in his late twenties answered. He was wearing the pants from a set of fatigues and still had on his boots. "Hi, I'm Kelly. Where's Sarah?"

"I'm sorry. You have the wrong address. There's no Sarah here."

Kelly reached into her purse and pulled out the last letter from her friend. She showed it to the man. "Sarah and her husband lived here. This is her address. See."

"Oh, that must have been Staff Sergeant Robbins. He lived here before us. They were transferred to Germany about two months ago, according to the neighbors."

Kelly simply collapsed, crying hysterically. She'd invested so much in getting to her friend's house and having a place to stay that she didn't know how to handle the news that she'd missed her friend by only a few months. The man stood there silently, looking first at Kelly, then at me. He clearly had no idea what to do. Fortunately for him, I did.

I walked over to Kelly, helped her up and turned her to face me. "It's OK Kelly. You'll just have to continue to travel with me. We'll do fine."

"But what about the baby? How can we have a baby in the RV?"

"You let me worry about that. If push comes to shove, we'll find a place to live for a few months until we can continue the trip. We'll get through this. We're family."

I thanked the man who'd answered the door and led Kelly back to the RV. We pulled out of the development and headed for the next campsite. Kelly was very quiet for the entire ride.

By the time we'd worked our way down the west coast to San Diego, Kelly was almost due. I found a campground as close to the local hospital as I could and parked the RV. Kelly was huge at this point, and miserably uncomfortable to boot.

Even as close to her time to deliver as she was, Kelly wanted to go to the beach. Since our first sighting of the Pacific Ocean in Washington, she'd been fascinated by the waves rolling in. We spent longer there than we should have, not getting back to the RV until early evening. After a late dinner, we were preparing for bed when Kelly looked at me, grimaced, and said, "I think my water just broke."

I got her a change of clothes to wear to the hospital and stepped out while she put them on. Then I grabbed her bag and put it and her into the car. When we arrived, the place was obviously busy, even at that late hour. It took a while, but we finally got Kelly admitted and she was whisked off to the labor and delivery floor. As soon as I could park the car, I followed.

I don't know how women do it. I've been told that if men gave birth instead of women, the human race would cease to exist in one generation. After watching Kelly go through labor, I believe it. Kelly was in labor for over twenty-four hours after having been up all day. I was exhausted, and I was just her coach. When she finally delivered the baby, it was after midnight. The nurses cleaned the baby up, helped Kelly get put back together enough for photographs, and allowed me a few minutes to take pictures of Kelly and the baby on my cell phone. Given what happened next, those photos would become some of the most precious things I own.

Kelly had decided to name the baby Matilda Jane. She wanted to call her Mattie. When she told me what name she had selected, she also told me that Matilda/Mattie was the closest name she could think of to Matt and since Jane was my mother's name, she wanted to honor both my mom and me. She'd also told me that if the baby was a boy, she'd name him Matthew Frederick after me and my father. I'd had to leave the RV for a minute after that discussion to recompose myself.

With the delivery completed and both Kelly and the baby taken care of, I left to return to the RV and get some sleep. At age forty, I didn't have the stamina that I'd had twenty years earlier and I crashed for almost fourteen hours. When I awoke, I discovered my phone had been set to silent, so I'd missed a number of telephone calls, all from the same California number. I assumed that the calls were from Kelly, asking me when I was coming to see Mattie and her. If only....

I quickly showered and dressed, then headed for the hospital. When I got there, I parked the car and walked up to Kelly's room. It was empty. I walked over to the nurses' station and asked the clerk working there where Kelly was. She looked up at me and her face fell. "No one told you?"

"Told me what?"

"You need to talk to Dr. Martinez. Let me get her for you now."

A few minutes later, the doctor who'd delivered Kelly's baby came rushing up to me. "Mr. Harper," she began, "I'm so sorry. We think Ms. Jones had pulmonary embolism, although we won't know until the autopsy is complete. She died earlier this morning."

I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. I got violently ill, barely making it to the trashcan adjacent to the nurses station, which was the first container I could find. When I finished emptying my stomach, I wiped my mouth and turned to the doctor. "What about the baby?"

"Your daughter is fine. She can go home with you tomorrow."

"Doctor, can we talk somewhere privately?"

"Sure."

We went into an empty room and closed the door. "What happens if I'm not the father?"

"The baby would go into the foster care system. It would probably be adopted at some point. But you are the father. Ms. Jones listed you as such on the birth certificate. She said the baby's name is Matilda Jane Harper and that you're the father of the child. That's the official record, unless you contest it. That baby is yours to take home and care for."

Then it dawned on her. "You aren't the birth father, are you? Wait, don't answer that. If you don't tell me, I don't have to do anything. Just answer this, can you care for this child the way it needs to be cared for?"

"I think so. I've certainly got the funds to do so, although I am going to have to do something about a place to live. Kelly and I have been traveling around the country in an RV. I'll have to get an apartment, at least until the baby is old enough to travel across the country."

"Let me suggest this to you. When you take that child out of here tomorrow, leave California. Make sure that there is no way that little girl ends up in foster care in this state. Rent a place in New Mexico or Arizona or Nevada, but get away from here. If the state gets custody of that child, she'll end up as damaged as all the other foster kids I see. Please, take the child and go tomorrow." And with that, she turned and left.

I arranged for Kelly's remains to be cremated once the autopsy was completed. I asked the funeral home handling the cremation to spread her ashes in the Pacific. They recorded a video of the service and sent it to me. In the meantime, I'd done what Dr. Martinez suggested. I picked Mattie up and left California by the most direct route.

I wasn't prepared to be a single parent at age forty. According to what I could find on the internet, Mattie was a "good" baby, sleeping at least two hours at a stretch. But every time she awoke, I had to feed her, change her and then rock her to sleep. I wasn't getting much sleep myself and I began to worry that I'd do something stupid and wreck the RV, killing the two of us. So I found a small town not far across the Arizona border, pulled up in front of a realtor's office in the RV, and went in to explore renting an apartment until Mattie was sleeping through the night. Surprisingly, there were several places available, including one that was furnished. Mattie and I moved in.

The next eight months were interesting, to say the least. The apartment complex had a number of young families, mostly with parents in their mid to late twenties. A few were married, but most were just living together. The majority were Hispanic. I stood out. Notwithstanding my Anglo heritage, the other residents embraced Mattie and me and I enjoyed our time living there. I made a mental note to make sure Mattie learned to speak Spanish when she was older.

As we were preparing to leave New Mexico, I called Mike Sullivan and asked him to recommend a real estate agent in Bucks County. I wanted to go back to the area where I'd grown up, but had no idea what the real estate market was like. School quality was a high priority for me, as I wanted to buy a home in a place where Mattie could get the best education available. Ideally, I wanted a ranch house with four bedrooms, two and half baths, a two car garage, central air, a fireplace and at least a half acre of ground. A fenced yard would be a bonus, but I could take care of that if need be. In other words, I was still hoping to have a family and wanted a home in which I could have one.

Mike's recommendation found a home that fit my specifications precisely in the Central Bucks school district. The home was located in the sending area to the best elementary school in the district. I bought it sight unseen, subject to an inspection, which Mike arranged for me. When the results showed no significant problems, I had Mike buy it for me using the power of attorney I'd previously given him. Two weeks later, after some frantic shopping for furniture, appliances, and kitchen equipment, Mattie and I moved in. I hired a lawn service and we were in business.

The next four years flew by. Mattie grew by leaps and bounds. I went to work for Mike doing contracts as a twenty hour per week part-timer, mostly working remotely, allowing me to keep my skills sharp while caring for Mattie. I'd think about increasing the hours worked once Mattie started full-day kindergarten, but for the time being, I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible.

The day finally came when Mattie started school. Like most of the parents at the bus stop, I was a bit emotional as I sent my daughter off on her own for the first time. I hoped that she'd thrive, but I was prepared to pull her out and seek alternate arrangements if there were issues.

I needn't have worried. Mattie took to kindergarten like a duck takes to water. She made a host of friends quickly, but seemed to have one special friend, a little boy named Ricky. Being five, she didn't know Ricky's last name, so we couldn't arrange after school play dates, but I figured I'd eventually meet Ricky's parents and, if not, could always ask her teacher to have Ricky's parents contact me. In the meantime, I was just glad that Mattie was doing well and we were happy.

As those of you who've had kids in kindergarten well know, the schools like to put on little programs to demonstrate how well they are educating your children. Mattie's school was no different. The first program of that sort was scheduled for a Wednesday afternoon in early November. With my flexible work schedule, I'd highlighted the date and time on my calendar so I wouldn't miss it.

When I arrived in Mattie's classroom, she saw me come in and came running over to me, dragging a little boy along behind her. "Daddy, you came."

"Of course I did, pumpkin. Who's your little friend?"

"Daddy, this is Ricky."