“Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it”

I called R. from a rest area on I-81 northbound just outside of Fredericksburg, Maryland three days gone missing. I said I think I am coming home.

We talked a bit and after a while he said “Yea, thats a good idea. It’s time.”

His voice seemed to hold the knowledge that it had taken me eight hundred miles of road to find – the knowledge of where I belonged. I could picture him, bearded face, round glasses, gentle and serious and laughing all at the same time. I could see the word “sanctuary” painted over the door in his kitchen. He had offered that once before, and I could hear it again in his voice as he continued “And call M. She needs to hear from you. From what I can tell, she loves you.”

He was matter-of-fact, and friendly. I knew he it was right, knew it was the hard way – his voice held that knowledge too. “I don’t know where to begin with her.” I said.

I’ d treated her badly, and I knew it. She’d not heard from me for twenty-four hours when I took off, after a fight. I had called in then to say I was alright, would be gone for a while, and gotten the machine. I imagined her anger, her hurt, her fear clearly, something I had been completely unable to do as I had run. What had she told the kids, what had she told my ex-wife as she dropped them off, having no idea where I was? I was wrong to do what I had done. Wrong, and at that moment painfully aware of just how much hurt I had caused. Silence filled the phone line.

I could see myself at the pay phone, a runaway dry-drunk, dirty car outside filled with the detritus of days on the road, calling in on a payphone beside the truckers looking for loads and the broken down tourists. So easy it would be to get lost in this stream of disconnected lives that exist on the road. So easy to let the shame, the inability to face the pain I had caused keep me out here, my only connection to my community a thin phone line, one that would quickly fray, then break.

It seemed like an eternity before I heard R’s voice say gently “How about starting with ‘I’m sorry’?”

I knew the truth of his words. I knew how hard it would be to say anything meaningful to M, to my kids that would heal the hurt and rebuild the broken trust my choice to disappear had caused. But “I’m sorry” – even that seemingly lame admission of my wrong would be the start.

And a start was what I needed. Just as I knew what necessary, I knew how fear could hold me back. And every moment I played to my fear, the miles home would multiply, until I was no longer strong enough to cover them.

This was Step Ten. The northbound highway shone in my mind, eight hundred miles to home. At the end of it I saw a door open, those I love standing just inside. Over the door was the word “sanctuary”. It was the possibility of forgiveness that would get me to step through, and I could only be forgiven wrongs freely admitted.

By taking Step Ten I did not have to be forever on the highway, a sad nameless face, a drifting life defined by a misstep. Step Ten offered me a way through that door, a way home