Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Cynthia Ruchti tells stories hemmed in hope. She's the award-winning author of 16 books and a frequent speaker for women's ministry events. She serves as the Professional Relations Liaison for American Christian Fiction Writers, where she helps retailers, libraries, and book clubs connect with the authors and books they love. She lives with her husband in Central Wisconsin. Visit her online at CynthiaRuchti.com.

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They Almost Always Come Home

Abingdon Press

Chapter One

Do dead people wear shoes? In the casket, I mean. Seems a waste. Then again, no outfit is complete without the shoes.

My thoughts pound up the stairs, down the hall, and into the master bedroom closet. Greg's gray suit is clean, I think. White shirt, although that won't allow much color contrast and won't do a thing for Greg's skin tones. His red tie with the silver threads? Good choice.

Shoes or no shoes? I should know this. I've stroked the porcelain-cold cheeks of several embalmed loved ones. My father and grandfather. Two grandmothers-one too young to die. One too old not to.

And Lacey.

The Baxter Street Mortuary will not touch my husband's body should the need arise. They got Lacey's hair and facial expression all wrong.

I rise from the couch and part the sheers on the front window one more time. Still quiet. No lights on the street. No Jeep pulling into our driveway. I'll give him one more hour, then I'm heading for bed. With or without him.

Shoes? Yes or no? I'm familiar with the casket protocol for children. But for adults?

Grandma Clarendon hadn't worn shoes for twelve years or more when she died. She preferred open-toed terrycloth slippers. Day and night. Home. Uptown. Church. Seems to me she took comfort to the extreme. Or maybe she figured God ought to be grateful she showed up in His house at all, given her distaste for His indiscriminate dispersal of the Death Angel among her friends and siblings.

"Ain't a lick of pride in outliving your brothers and sisters, Libby." She said it often enough that I can pull off a believable impression. Nobody at the local comedy club need fear me as competition, but the cousins get a kick out of it at family reunions.

Leaning on the tile and cast-iron coffee table, I crane everything in me to look at the wall clock in the entry. Almost four in the morning? I haven't even decided who will sing special music at Greg's memorial service. Don't most women plan their husband's funeral if he's more than a few minutes late?

In the past, before this hour, I'm mentally two weeks beyond the service, trying to decide whether to keep the house or move to a condo downtown.

He's never been this late before. And he's never been alone in the wilderness. A lightning bolt of something-fear? anticipation? pain?-ripples my skin and exits through the soles of my feet.

The funeral plans no longer seem a semimorbid way to occupy my mind while I wait for the lights of his Jeep. Not pointless imaginings but preparation.

That sounds like a thought I should command to flee in the name of Jesus or some other holy incantation. But it stares at me with narrowed eyes as if to say, "I dare you."

Greg will give me grief over this when he gets home. "You worry too much, Libby. So I was a little late." He'll pinch my love handles, which I won't find endearing. "Okay, a lot late. Sometimes the wind whips up the waves on the larger lakes. We voyageurs have two choices-risk swamping the canoe so we can get home to our precious wives or find a sheltered spot on an island and stay put until the wind dies down."

I never liked how he used the word precious in that context. I should tell him so. I should tell him a lot of things. And I will.

If he ever comes home.

* * *

With sleep-deprived eyes, I trace the last ticks of the second hand. Seven o'clock. Too early to call Frank? Not likely.

I reach to punch the MEM 2 key sequence on the phone. Miss the first time. Try again.

One ring. Two. Three. If the answering machine kicks in-

"Frank's Franks. Frankly the best in all of Franklin County. Frank speaking. How can I help you?"

I bite back a retort. How does a retired grocery manager get away with that much corny? Consistently. One thing is still normal.

"Frank, it's Libby. I hate to call this early but-"

"Early?" he snorts. "Been up since four-thirty."

Figures. Spitting image of his son.

"Biked five miles," he says. "Had breakfast at the truck stop. Watered those blasted hostas of your mother-in-law's that just won't die. Believe me, I've done everything in my power to help them along toward that end."

I don't have the time or inclination to defend Pauline's hostas. "I called for a reason, Frank."

"Sorry. What's up?"

I'm breathing too rapidly. Little flashes of electricity hem my field of vision. "Have you heard from Greg?"

"He's back, right?"

"Not yet. I'm probably worried for nothing."

He expels a breath that I feel in the earpiece. "When did you expect him? Yesterday?"

"He planned to get back on Friday, but said Saturday at the latest. He hates to miss church now that he's into helping with the sound system."

"Might have had to take a wind day. Or two."

Why does it irritate me that he's playing the logic card? "I thought of that."

"Odd, though." His voice turns a corner.

"What do you mean?"

Through the receiver, I hear that grunt thing he does when he gets into or out of a chair. "I had one eye on the Weather Channel most of last week," he says.

What did you do with the other eye, Frank? The Weather Channel? Early retirement has turned him into a weather spectator. "And?"

"Says winds have been calm throughout the Quetico. It's a good thing too. Tinder-dry in Canada right now. One spark plus a stiff wind and you've got major forest fire potential. They've posted a ban on open campfires. Cook stoves only. Greg planned for that, didn't he?"

"How should I know?" Somewhere deep in my brain, I pop a blood vessel. Not my normal style-not with anyone but Greg. "Sorry, Frank. I'm ... I'm overreacting. To everything. I'm sure he'll show up any minute. Or call."

From the background comes a sound like leather complaining. "Told my boy more than once he ought to invest in a satellite phone. The man's too cheap to throw away a bent nail."

"I know." I also know I would have thrown a newsworthy fit if he'd suggested spending that kind of money on a toy for his precious wilderness trips when I'm still waiting for the family budget to allow for new kitchen countertops. As it stands, they're not butcher block. They're butcher shop. And they've been that way since we moved in, since Greg first apologized for them and said we'd replace them "one of these first days."

How many "first days" pass in twenty-three years?

His precious wilderness trips? Is that what I said? Now I'm doing it.

Frank's voice urges me back to the scene of our conversation. "Hey, Libby, have him give me a call when he gets in, will you?" His emphasis of the word when rings artificial.

"He always does, Frank." My voice is a stream of air that overpowers the words.

"Still-"

"I'll have him call."

The phone's silent, as is the house. I never noticed before how loud is the absence of sound.

* * *

It's official. Greg's missing. That's what the police report says: Missing Person.

I don't remember filing a police report before...