Running Away to Home Read online

  Eventually we settled on €600 per month for the renovated second floor of Robert’s house. About $800 or $850, depending on the exchange rate. It was a stupid price, twice as much as a nice apartment in Zagreb, but we swallowed it. Jim and I have that guilt that all American tourists are pigs. We did not want to be pigs. So we agreed, relieved to have housing at last.

  Then, twelve days before we were scheduled to leave the country, in the middle of June, Helena e-mailed again:

  Hallo, sorry I’m late because we have some problems in our familiy, our grandmother is very sick she is dieing. I hope that you can understand this situation. She is Robert mother and my grandmother, she is living below your flat where you and your familiy will be settle down so we stop with all works in your flat. We don’t know how situation will be with grandmother because every day is different, some day she is very sick and we think that she will die and next day she is better, she is eating and drinking, Today we are not sure that we will finish your flat so Robert offer if you will be at flat where he has caffe-bar, he offer two badrooms, living room and internet, you will be there for some 10 days and than we will transfer you and your familiy at Robert house and if you wants something else call me on my number, today or tomorrow at your time two p.m., I think then is 8 p.m. at Croatia, greetings from all us, Helena.

  I made a last-minute scramble for another apartment in Mrkopalj, but it was too late. We had no choice but to trust Robert. Our tenants would move in July 1. The schnoodle had gone to Jim’s sister and brother-in-law in Oklahoma. The cat moved in with our retired schoolteacher neighbor. We’d attended our good-bye parties. We’d gotten properly drunk with everybody. We were hungover from hepatitis shots. Where were we going? Well, we weren’t sure. We might have a place to stay in Mrkopalj. We might not! It was all the same now. We were stepping through the door, out of one existence and into another. Metanoia.

  Finally, on June 24, Jim’s final day at the office, I received an e-mail from Mrkopalj: Robert’s mother had died. They were working on our rooms again.

  They had a week to complete them.

  Doable in America. But we weren’t moving to America.

  We just had to have faith in Mrkopalj.

  My sister Stephanie drove us to the airport. With one last, shirt-drenching cry, my soul parted from its earthly bindings. Finally, I was becoming a true traveler again, open in heart and mind and schedule. It seemed for the first time entirely possible that I could reconcile the free and seeking spirit I had been as a young woman with the tightly tethered mother and wife I had become—it just took a hell of a lot more work. I glimpsed glory in it, though I was unsure how it would go. For the first time in a very long time, I had no idea what would happen next.

  We filed onto the airplane hand in hand, all of us quiet. As Zadie looked out the tiny plane window, her face glowed with an angelic glee I recognized. It was how I felt inside, too. This was the prize I’d been keeping my eye on.

  “I never been on a plane when I was a big girl before,” Zadie said. “I like to be inside clouds.”

  The crease left my forehead. My shoulders unknotted. My muscles, much tested over the days of packing and hauling, relaxed. I stole a glance at Jim, who winked at me, then pressed his head against his seat back. Sam was absorbed in his brand-spankin’-new Nintendo DSI. Good enough.

  On June 29, the Wilson Hoff family lifted off from Des Moines International Airport, having absolutely no idea what to expect from our next year.

  Surprisingly, it was a very good feeling.

  chapter four

  Our entrance into Europe was less impressive: Zadie vomited in the Munich airport.

  It was a long overnight flight. The attendants startled everyone out of sand-eyed half sleep by snapping open the curtains and windows and serving orange juice and muffins that didn’t sit well with my daughter. As we sprawled in the airport chairs, waiting for our final short hop to Milan, where we’d pick up our leased car and drive to Mrkopalj, Zadie leaned over and wretched one convulsive splatter onto the marble floor. Then she quietly asked for a napkin, wiped her mouth, and walked away.

  “Are you okay, honey?” I asked, following her and dabbing at her shirt.

  “I don’t want everybody looking at me,” she said, sounding panicky, keeping her eyes trained straight ahead. She stole a glance at me. I saw determination in her face.

  Could she be trying to prove herself to me? That she could be trusted to come along when Mom traveled? Zadie had said good-bye to me many times before work trips. She’d always been such a big girl about it that I hardly knew she’d noticed my absences. Maybe she had noticed. Probably she had.

  One of the things I’d hoped for most on our trip was to figure out my girl. The previous year, Zadie, who was three at the time, had barely survived full-time preschool while I got back to my writing career in earnest, an anguished decision I’d made after years hunkered down in the Stay-at-Home Mommy Cave. Being away from home all day just wrecked my little towheaded daughter. Zadie threw fits from the moment she walked in the door until the Grand Finale Tantrum of Bedtime. Rather than chalking it up to growing pains, I blamed myself, assuming she felt rejected, as if I’d subcontracted her toddler years in favor of my own selfish needs and fears. Which was kind of true. Jim and I worked part-time when Sam was born, raising him without child care until he was four. By the time we had Zadie, we were tired of juggling schedules and watching PBS Kids. In the end, Jim took a full-time gig in one of those places where you have to talk to your boss to prove you really need a sick day. I accepted more magazine assignments because the silence of the office was way easier than parenting two toddlers. And, to be honest, I was probably a little intimidated about having a daughter. I had no healthy template to follow. I just didn’t know how that mother-daughter harmony thing worked and, well, I was terrified of failing.

  As Zadie hurried toward a restroom sign, I stepped in front of her and lifted her into my arms. I held her tight, and her body went limp. Finally she cried. I stepped into the restroom and cleaned her up properly.

  “You are a very good traveler,” I told her. “You were very patient on the airplane.”

  “I’m tired, Mommy,” she said, rubbing her eyes.

  “I know you are,” I said, wiping her face gently with a wet paper towel. “You fell asleep on the plane and then slid right onto the floor and slept all curled up like a little baby.”

  She smiled at that. “Tell me about when I was a baby.”

  “You were a very good girl. You were content,” I said. “I would sit in my office and write stories and rock you in your car seat with my foot. One time, I did a whole interview while I was nursing you.”

  “That’s when I would get milk from your boobs,” she said gravely. Nursing is fascinating business for a four-year-old.

  “Yes, it was,” I said. “I think we’re all cleaned up now. Do you feel better?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to ride on the plane anymore.”

  “We have one more short flight,” I said. “And then we get to swim in a pool.”

  “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath.

  “We’ll be together the whole time,” I told her. “Like two fancy girls traveling the world.”

  She seemed pleased at this, and we headed out to wait for our flight.

  In Milan, Jim and the kids swam in the icy Novotel pool while I caught the shuttle to pick up the Peugeot we’d leased for a year. A smart black number decked out with a sunroof that spanned the whole top of the car, it was a few inches short of a station wagon, but big enough to fit all our bags and the kids, and it had a very essential GPS, which we set to a prim British voice and named Charla before charting our course to Mrkopalj, Croatia.

  We drove a landscape that turned from Italy’s dusty vineyards to wide Slovenian meadows to jagged Croatian seafront. Mountains rolled forward, like great stones hidden under a blanket of deciduous trees and, later, the primeval evergreens of the Gorski
Kotar. The first time I’d seen this land, alone and afraid, it seemed so foreboding. Now, with my family, the cool green wilderness was the realm of elves and fairies.

  It was early evening under a moody sky when we hit the outskirts of town. Jim pulled over and we took a family photo in front of the Mrkopalj re-creation of Calvary. We drove the final mile into the village, where the trees backed away from the road, replaced by tiny stucco houses. Old stoop-sitting men with hands on knees watched us pass.

  We rounded the bend onto Novi Varoš. Giddy and curious, we pulled in to Robert Starčević’s driveway. The three-story house was bigger than I remembered, a mishmash of diamond-shaped asbestos tiles and thick wood planks stained dark. On each floor, mullioned windows swung wide open to the world.

  Robert emerged from a side door, a great brown bear squinting and blinking in the sun. He saw us in our car waving at him and startled in a panic. He stumbled down the steps. Was he weaving?

  “Oh! Jennifer! Hello!” he said as we stepped out of the Peugeot. I hugged him and he tried to kiss my cheeks but missed. His lips smacked somewhere behind my ears. He smelled like old beer.

  “We do not expect you coming today,” Robert said, arms up in an expansive shrug. “E-mail says you come tomorrow.”

  “I sent that last night from our hotel in Italy before we went to bed,” I said. “But now that I think of it, I sent it really late. I’m sorry. I meant we were coming today.”

  “We do not expect today,” Robert repeated.

  “This is my husband, Jim,” I said, standing back a bit and indicating Jim.

  “Oh, hey, Jeem!” Robert stuck out his hand. “Is good to meet you, Jeem!”

  “Drago mi je,” said Jim, busting out his Croatian up front. “Pleased to meet you.”

  I introduced Sam and Zadie, who hid behind me. Sam was wringing his hands. Zadie clutched my leg. They were jet-lagged and disoriented, and I couldn’t wait to get them into their jammies and a comfortable bed and assure their little worried faces that their mama had brought them to a safe place. Because Mama was seeking similar reassurance.

  Which Mama did not get. Robert seemed flustered. Flecks of dust and drywall nested in his curly hair. “Your rooms, they are not finished,” he said, fishing in his pocket for his cigarettes. “They are finished tomorrow. Finish, one day.”

  “I’d like to see the rooms,” Jim said.

  “Yes, of course,” Robert said. He walked us up the steps to the second floor and led us through a narrow foyer toward a pair of French doors.

  The rooms of the second floor were under a heavy layer of rubble. The main space was an empty shell of bare studs and stubs of pipes that indicated it would perhaps someday contain a kitchen. Three rooms broke off the main one. Two would likely be bedrooms. A third was sheathed in red tile, and upon that floor was some enormous mechanism—either a giant shower or a time machine, we couldn’t tell.

  Construction had barely begun, because demolition had not yet ended.

  I stole a panicked look at Jim, who had his hands in his back pockets, thoughtful.

  Jim looked at Robert and raised his eyebrows a bit. Robert ran his hands through his hair.

  “We do not expect you come today. E-mail say you come tomorrow,” said Robert. “We finish rooms in maybe two days.”

  Cuculić appeared behind us. He was shorter than I remembered, his face thinner.

  “Mr. Cuculić,” I said, and nodded.

  “Mizz Veelson,” he said, nodding as well.

  “This is my husband, Jim,” I said.

  They shook hands.

  “Drago mi je,” Jim said.

  “Oh ho ho! Your husband speaks Croatian!” Cuculić exclaimed.

  “We studied a little bit before we got here,” said Jim, all jovial. “We’re not proficient or anything, but we do our best—”

  I cut him off. “Don’t get comfortable,” I said. “We can’t stay here. Look at this place.”

  “Take it easy, Jen,” Jim said, putting his arm around me.

  Robert, sensing he was losing customers, hustled us back to the driveway, away from the chaotic second floor, speaking in Croatian to Cuculić.

  “Robert says the rooms are not finished today,” Cuculić began. “You may stay here, on the third floor, or you may stay above Stari Baća, until the workers finish.”

  Zadie put up her arms to be lifted, and I picked her up and pressed her to me. Sam nudged in at my side. The one thing I’d dreaded most about returning to Mrkopalj—that we would get there with no place to call home—was happening. I’d done everything within my supermom powers to ensure that my family would be as safe and settled as possible on this journey. And yet there were details that even I couldn’t control. Details that I would have to relinquish either to fate or to the people of this village. On this latter note, the two beery dudes before me did not inspire confidence.

  Robert surveyed our family and seemed to come to a conclusion. “We go to Stari Baća for just one beer,” he said. Cuculić shrugged, and he and Robert headed to his bright red Chevy, now sporting a great bandage of duct tape across the front bumper. Jim and I followed, driving one block to the bar in anxious silence.

  It started to drizzle. I’d picked up right where I left off in Mrkopalj. Lost. Floating. Itching to get out. But this time, I’d dragged my family along. I looked at my kids in the backseat. They seemed to have grown smaller in the past hour. This was all my fault.

  “Mom, I’m tired,” said Sam. “Where are we going to sleep?” Zadie had been looking out the window, but now she leveled her gaze at me. I didn’t know what to tell them.

  “Hang in there, guys,” Jim said. “We’ll get this figured out.”

  I had to keep it together and get us through this. I took a cleansing breath as we parked, then I led my family into the murk of Stari Baća. Robert retrieved beers and juices from behind the bar and brought them over on a tray.

  “You stay in Stari Baća rooms for two or maybe three night,” Robert said. “Then rooms in my house finished, and you come.”

  Cuculić piped up. “Robert says that you can stay in the rooms above Stari Baća until your rooms in his house are finished.”

  “We are not living in a bar,” I said. “We’re just not.”

  “You stay then, maybe on third floor of my house, or in rooms here in Stari Baća, until your rooms are finished. Three or maybe four nights,” Robert said, repeating the exact thing that I’d just said I would not do.

  “Robert says you can also stay in the third floor of his house, where his daughters sleep now,” said Cuculić. “Then maybe in a few days construction on your rooms is finished.”

  “I heard him,” I snapped.

  Yes, I am aware that my foul disposition was not helping matters. I was worried about my kids. Zadie crawled into my lap. Sam laid his head down on the table and closed his eyes. They both looked as if they were fighting tears.

  The men around me, on the other hand, were kicking back for cocktail hour. I couldn’t tell whom I wanted to throttle more, Cuculić or Robert. How long had these guys known we were coming? Nine months? Give me three stay-at-home moms and a pile of lumber and I could’ve built a house in that time. This all would’ve been a funny bar story if it were just Jim and me and we were twenty-something backpackers. Instead, we were responsible for two increasingly worried-looking kids, and the thought that perhaps I hadn’t led us into the safest situation was throwing me into another Mrkopalj panic.

  Jim, noting the apprehension spreading over my face, spoke up. “What were the rooms above the bar like when you stayed here last fall?”

  “The abandoned set of a slasher movie,” I answered.

  “You want see?” Robert asked. The men led my husband through the restaurant area up the back stairway. I remembered my night in one of those rooms last fall. Battered doors lined a long linoleum hallway. Inside those doors, musty bunk beds made up with army blankets were shoved against paneled walls. Someone had assaulted the bath
rooms with messy and moldering caulk jobs. The main renters of these rooms were visiting hunters and bar patrons wanting to get laid in a clandestine manner. I had been conscious all night of men drinking down below. Drinking a lot. And smoking. A lot.

  Jim came back downstairs in less than a minute, shaking his head. Robert went to the phone and barked into it. Cuculić floated to the bar.

  “Well, those are out,” Jim said. He reached over and rubbed my back. “That’s where you stayed last fall? No wonder you ran home so fast.”

  I turned to him and said quietly: “I know we planned to go to Rovinj in the winter, but why don’t we go there now? We could just hang out on a beach until these guys get our rooms done.”

  “Be patient, Jen,” Jim said, hands bobbing in front of him as if bouncing two basketballs simultaneously. “It’ll all work out. And hey, you were right—this place is straight out of last century.”

  “Jim, those rooms in his house aren’t going to be finished in one day—or even one month,” I said. “Should we maybe talk about an alternate plan?”

  “Everything’s behind because Robert’s mother died,” Jim said quietly. “They couldn’t help that. I just wish they would’ve been straightforward about it so we could’ve found something else.”

  “We have nowhere to stay,” I whispered. “Don’t you think that’s a problem? I’m pretty sure it’s a problem.”

  “You’re panicking. Everything seems worse than it is,” he said. “But it’s actually really pretty here. Is that the tourism guy you told me about? He’s being helpful now.”

  “Judas!” I pointed to Jim, incredulous. “What’s so helpful about translating everything Robert says? Robert speaks English!”

  “Listen, we’re here to find out about your family,” Jim said. “We can’t do that in Rovinj.”

  Of course the guy was right. But being a mom and being a free-spirited traveler were feeling like two entirely different things right then.