There’s nothing quite like a road trip. They were the hallmark of my childhood complete with the old green and faux-wood station wagon with the back-facing seat and space for one of us to lay completely down in the back when we wanted to sleep. Circus peanuts, sandwiches at rest stops, AAA guidebooks, and the seat belt game for the kid in the middle. And oh, the fights among us kids followed by the never acted upon warning to cut it out or one of our parents would come back there. Remember those days, Gen X?
We drove everywhere back then and no distance seemed too daunting. Our trusty wagon towed a pop-up camper with hard-sided luggage strapped to the top and only failed us once when the suitcases came loose, spilling all over the highway.
So when I wrote a book about a road trip with an old man who’s supposed to be dead and a young girl willing to risk everything to give her brother a safe home, I was prepared. I knew road trips.
Except the road ahead for Mack, Brandi and Sy is very different from my experiences. With no money, dwindling gas and very little food, this unlikely trio must face the wilds of Wyoming with nothing but their ingenuity, scrappy resilience, and a little bit of theft.
So, in my research for their travels, I needed to hit the road and who should I bring as my side-kick? My mom, of course. While I drove, she took pictures, wrote down notes I dictated to her, sometimes took video of the dashboard on accident, which to this day, is some of my favorite audio of our time together. It wasn’t like the old days. There were no fighting kids in the back, few billboards to gather enough letters to win the Alphabet game, and without my father who had passed a couple of years prior, the car, at first, felt a little empty.
But as we drove from Denver to Casper and Lander, into Pinedale and up to Jackson, Mom and I talked about the past, laughed about the old mishaps, had a few of our own and created new memories to add to our collection.
There’s nothing quite like a road trip to bring people together.
Mack and Brandi’s travels are full of uncertainty and heartache, yet during their few days navigating the highways, they discover similarities that bond them. Like how Mack will do anything to give his wife Daisy dignity, even with a cancer diagnosis and Alzheimer’s taking pieces of her away. And how Brandi, who dreams of a future for herself that doesn’t include her troubled mother or jail, is willing to risk it all if it gives her brother a home where he is safe and loved.
While my road trip did not quite reflect the challenges of my characters – we had plenty of gas and a home to return to – it was a reminder of what bonds us all. Our desire for home, love and family. And how the open road and the inside of a car might just be the place where we find it.
THE WILD ROAD HOME by Melissa Payne
A beautiful and enriching novel about unforgettable love and the power of friends and family by Melissa Payne, the bestselling author of The Night of Many Endings and A Light in the Forest.
Mack Anders will do anything for his wife, Daisy. Even die. With the woman he loves fading away from Alzheimer’s, Mack fakes his own passing. The insurance makes certain that Daisy will be taken care of with dignity and comfort until the end. In a lonesome cabin in the Wyoming wilderness, he lives off the grid with nothing but thoughts of the past to keep him company and the belief that Daisy is better off without him.
Strong-willed eighteen-year-old Brandi has just been released from juvie. Willing to risk everything to save her young brother, Sy, from their unstable mother, Brandi takes him on the run. Her destination is their aunt’s house in Casper. Maybe there she can finally find a stable home for Sy. After a busted tire strands them in the remote wildlands of Wyoming, they cross paths with Mack. Brandi quickly realizes this quiet stranger might be their only hope of reaching safety.
On an unpredictable road ahead, escape brings these three kindred souls together. But the real world is closing in, and to help Brandi and Sy, Mack will have to come back to life in ways he never imagined.
Fiction [Lake Union Publishing, On Sale: June 18, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781662515743 / ]
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About Melissa Payne
For as long as she can remember, Melissa Payne has been telling stories in one form or another—from high school newspaper articles to a graduate thesis to blogging about marriage and motherhood. But she first learned the real importance of storytelling when she worked for a residential and day treatment center for abused and neglected children. There she wrote speeches and letters to raise funds for the children. The truth in those stories was piercing and painful and written to invoke in the reader a call to action: to give, to help, to make a difference. Melissa’s love of writing and sharing stories in all forms has endured. She lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with her husband and three children, a friendly mutt, a very loud cat, and the occasional bear. The Secrets of Lost Stones is her first novel.
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