When you last saw me and my brother Nils, we were tooling around the friendly wilds of Minnesosta in search of Duluth. If you missed that first chapter in our saga or want to relive it, especially all those exciting bits where we got lost and yelled Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! and maniacally herky-jerked our arms around a moving car while waving people down to ask directions through the windshield, you can be brave and click right here.

Also: this has nothing to do with anything, other than A) Minnesota,  B) super-sized woodland mammals and C) my fondness for non sequiturs, but here I would like to insert a picture of a moose that I saw up by the boundary waters. It was large and moose-like. It did not look lost. This is my expert analysis.

Otherwise, I’ll just pick up where I left off: with the nice Minnesota couple who pulled over to help us in response to our lost and maniacal herky-jerking. They rolled down the window and peered out at us, the twitching visitors, with curiosity and concern.

We said: Excuse us, but which direction is Duluth?
And then the man at the wheel blinked and said: Duluth?
And we said: Duluth.
And the man said: Duluth. I think it’s that way (pointing in one direction)
And the woman said: Noooo, Duluth is that way (pointing in the other direction).
And Nils said: That way?
And I said: ???

And then the woman referred to a map — which was already spread on her lap, as though she she, too, were lost — and confirmed that Duluth was indeed That way. Yes, go That way, she told us. And then take a left on Route Such-and-Such, she added. And then just go go go.

They were so nice about it.

So we went went went. We ha ha ha’d and blah blah blahed. But after too many miles and still no signs for Route Such-and-Such, we started to feel lost again. SURELY we should have come upon the left turn by now? Yes? Shouldn’t we? Ha ha? Blah blah? Ha ha?

Nils said: Still no Google Maps?
And I said: Nope.
And Nils said: Shit.
And I said: Shit.
And Nils said: When’s your plane?
And I said: Plane? WHAT PLANE? I DON’T HAVE ANY PLANE. (Getting a grip.) I’m not going to panic. Nope! Not panicking! Ha! Ha! Ha!
And Nils said: Nope! No panicking! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Just then, sensing our desperation, or hearing our cackling, or possibly even wanting nothing to do with us, a truck with a man in it materialized at an intersection that Nils and I had somehow failed to recognized as an intersection until the truck with the man in it materialized there. In fact, we were so busy Not Panicking, we almost blew right past it.

We asked the man in the truck: Is this the way to Duluth?
And the man in the truck blinked and said: Duluth?
And we said: Duluth.
And the man in the truck said: Duluth. That way. Yes.

He was so nice about it.

But Nils and I were beginning to think that no one in Minnesota ever went to Duluth. This seemed strange to me, because I had been in Duluth some 30 years ago, and there were people there, then. Actual Minnesotans! Lots of them! Nice ones, too. But maybe the very same nice people I saw in Duluth three decades ago STILL LIVED IN DULUTH. Maybe they NEVER LEFT, and no one new ever ever ever arrived!

Or maybe there WAS no Duluth. Maybe Duluth was a fiction. Maybe I had made up my visit there, ha ha ha! Maybe Nils and I were hallucinating! Maybe all of Minnesota was a fantasy, some outsiders’ projected chimeric figment of moose and Midwesten niceness!

Still, Nils and I trundled along Route Such-and-Such. We went went went. The clock ticked ticked ticked. The plane loomed loomed loomed. We had no no no idea how far we were from Duluth Duluth Duluth.

Nils said: Still no Google Maps?
And I said: Nope.
And Nils said: Shiiiiiiit.
And I said: Shiiiiiit.

Then, coming up on a pair of road workers with their nice orange vests and their nice orange cones, we resolved again to seek sagacious cartographic guidance from the mouths of locals. Nils pulled to a stop.

I rolled down my window and said: How far is it to Duluth?
And the orange men blinked and said: Duluth?
And I said: Duluth.

And the orange men stared at me as though no one had ever asked this question before; as though no one ever would again; as though this word “Duluth” were strange and foreign to their ears (WHAT’S THIS THING YOU SAY, “DULUTH”?); as though I were speaking Lithuanian; as though I had just rolled down my window and asked them to perform some kind of surgery on me right there on the shoulder, something surreal and incomprehensible and more than a little scary (HELLO THERE, WOULD YOU TWO KIND GENTLEMEN PLEASE AMPUTATE MY FEET?).

The first orange man said: Ahhhhhhm.
And second orange man said: Errrrrmmm.
And I said: How far a drive is it to Duluth? What, 40 minutes, maybe?
And the second orange man said: Oh, at least.
And the first orange man said: Oh, at least.
And we said: Thank you.

And they were so nice about it.

So Nils and I went went went. We ha ha ha’d and blah blah blahed. Every now and then we passed a sign that said DULUTH, but the sign was never near anything like an intersection, and it was never accompanied by mileage. Just, you know, DULUTH. As in, THIS ROAD YOU’RE ON? EVENTUALLY IT WILL BRING YOU LOST LITTLE NUDNIKS TO DULUTH. HOW LONG THAT WILL TAKE, WE CANNOT SAY. BUT THANK YOU FOR GETTING LOST, AND HAVE A NICE DAY.

Eventually we hit a pocket of cell phone service, and I found a rash of messages from our dad demanding to know what the hell had happened to us. I told him we got lost.

He said: HOW THE F— DID YOU GET LOST?
And I said: We don’t know. We just did.
And he said: That’s impossible. It’s one road for miles and miles. HOW THE F— DID YOU GET LOST?
And I said: I just told you we don’t know. We just did. It just happened.
And he said: HOW THE F— DID YOU GET LOST?

But we found Duluth! Yes! We even got to the airport with an hour to spare. Which was perfect! Because of course by the time we got there, my flight was canceled. But it didn’t matter, because I switched to another flight five hours later. And Nils and I were so relieved to have arrived, and so giddy from all that blabbing and laughing and all those lonely Minnesota byways and all that serial Minnesota niceness, that one more bump in the road barely mattered.

He said: Hey! You want to have lunch in Duluth?
And I said: Hey! Yes!

We had lunch in Duluth. We did not get lost. And everyone was nice.

There we were, driving from the Minnesota boundary waters to the Duluth International Airport early one Friday morning, and somehow, somewhere south of Grand Marais — PLEASE don’t ask where and how, because we STILL HAVE NO FREAKING IDEA — my brother Nils and I got kind of maybe totally and pathetically lost.

I want you to be impressed by this. Because this is not easy to do. In fact, it is extremely difficult to do! You have to really apply yourself! No one in the history of driving has ever gotten lost driving from the boundary waters to Duluth. The trip involves going roughly a million miles on roughly one road, and to get lost, you either have to have the world’s single most abysmally deficient sense of direction or you have to be a space of cosmic dumbassic proportions. Either that, or you have to sit next to someone who is.

That would be me. Not Nils. Me. But Nils, bless his soul, was sitting next to me, having just spent several days hiking and fishing in the Minnesota wilderness with the dumbassic moi and our dad and brothers. A kind and generous and beneficent person, Nils had chivalrously agreed to drive me to the Duluth airport while the rest of the gang left to catch their flights in Minneapolis. And so we gabbed and laughed for the first 60 or 70 or whatever miles, blah-blah-blah-ing and ha-ha-ha-ing without a care in the world.

Early on I pulled up Google Maps for directions, but who needed directions, ha ha ha? It was roughly a million miles on roughly one road, right?? Piece o’ cake, kids! Blah blah blah! Ha ha ha! Every now and then our dad called or shot us a text — just wanted to be sure we were on track — and we responded with with teasing texts back. Isn’t that funny! He’s keeping tabs on us! As though we’re hopeless dumbassic space cases! Ha ha ha! Blah blah blah!

Then we pulled over to get gas and a couple of sad breakfast sandwiches. And then we pulled out again, still talking and laughing our endless streams of blahs and ha’s.

And then, for no reason we could discern then or decipher later on, we came to a T.

And Nils was like: a T?
And I was like: a T?
And we were like: What the f— is a T doing here? There isn’t supposed to be a T.
And then we were like: Where the f— are we?
And then I was like: What the f— road are we on?
And then Nils was like: What does Google Maps say?
And I was like: Umm, there is no Google Maps.
And Nils was like: What?
And I was like: What what?
And Nils was like: Oh, shit, no cell service out here?
And I was like: Oh, shit, no.
And Nils was like: Oh, shit, we don’t have a map.
And I was like: Oh, shit, oh, shit.
And Nils was like: Oh, shit, we’re lost.
And I was like: Oh, shit! Oh, shit!
And we were both like: Oh, shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!

At this point, I must tell you we did the rational thing. We looked for road signs pointing to Duluth. Shouldn’t there be road signs at a T pointing to the nearest major metropolis? There should be road signs at a T pointing to the nearest major metropolis. But there weren’t. There was nothing that said, THIS WAY FOR DULUTH or THAT WAY FOR DULUTH, or NORTH THIS WAY or SOUTH THAT WAY, or even YOU CLUELESS DUMBASSIC TOURISTS, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHERE YOU ARE, DO YOU? HUHHHHH? DUHHHHHH?

But people don’t say such things in Minnesota, because people in Minnesota are nice. Even the “no trespassing” signs bend over backwards to be polite; where a typical New York sign says, KEEP OUT PRIVATE PROPERTY VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED AND BY THE WAY GET THE F— OFF OUR LAND, an equivalent sign in the boundary waters says, THANK YOU FOR TRESPASSING AND HAVE A NICE DAY. Or something like that.

Anyway. Back to the T. Nils and I had no idea which way to turn. So we turned right. But that felt wrong. So after a few miles, we turned around and headed in the opposite direction. But that felt wrong, too.

So Nils said: Hmmmmm.
And I said: We should ask someone.
And Nils said, more or less: But there isn’t anyone to ask.
And I said: Shit. Let’s flag someone down.

And just then, we saw a lone car barreling toward us. But it was too late for us to pull over and get out and wave our arms.

So I said: Let’s wave our arms right now! While we drive!
And Nils said: Yeah! Okay!
And I said: Yeah! Real crazy-like!
And Nils said: Yeah! This’ll get their attention!
And I said: Yeah!

And so, while driving along, we waved our arms real crazy-like through the windshield, and the man and the woman in the other car gave us a baffled look at that said, WHAT THE HUH? WHY ARE THESE CRAZY PEOPLE WAVING THEIR ARMS AT US?

And then they did a very nice, Minnesotan sort of thing to do. They pulled over and rolled down their windows. (If this were the Empire State, they would have given us a baffled look that said, GET THE HELL AWAY FROM US, CRAZY PEOPLE)

TO BE CONTINUED. . . .

Every once in a while, yielding to some ideopathic spasm of curiosity or boredom, I drift into the attic storage room and pull something from a box. I have many boxes in there. Some have known contents: the Christmas stuff, the Easter stuff, the Halloween stuff, the unloved-toys-and-neglected-hand-me-downs stuff. Others are packed with mystery, decades old, never sorted, sitting and crumbling with patience. After I lost my parents and sister in the early ’90s, I became the archivist by default, amassing milk crates and suitcases of papers and photos that I’d always meant to organize and someday actually will. Once my kids are all grown. Once I have all that free time. Once.

In the meantime, I drift now and then into the storage room and pull something out — a folder, an envelop, a binder that smells of paste and cracking paper. Tonight I pulled out two taped-together pieces of cardboard with my sister Lucy’s handwriting on one side: “DO NOT THROW AWAY (Precious Contents).” The tape looked undisturbed; whatever lurked within hadn’t seen the light of day for decades.

I disturbed it. And there I found an artifact I hadn’t known existed: a contact sheet featuring black-and-white photos of my mother and father years before I entered the picture. Late ’50s sometime. It’s a stunning relic, and not just because my parents are stunning, too: lovely ash-blonde Jeanne smiling on the lawn in a low afternoon sun; shirtless Louis, 16 years her senior but ever the show-off, in his beefcake poses and high-waisted pants. It stuns because I see in their faces and their bodies, in the beam of her smile and the brashness of his stance, the sexy, electric charge of early love.

This was a gaping-mouth moment for me. Not that I hadn’t seen the current of love between them throughout my childhood. It never faded; it grew. But it changed as they changed as he changed. In the strange and draggy years following my father’s suicide attempt in 1974 and the nine-day coma that followed, he lost both his short-term memory and his ability to do much around the house beyond washing dishes and dishing out praise.

He never lost his ebullient personality, thank God, and he retained an interest in other people that allowed him — even at his most senile — to greet strangers as friends, including those he had forgotten were friends already. They were all the same to him. The constant was my mother, and she was, indeed, constant. Mama did all the driving, all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the planning and bill-paying and college-hauling, all the money-earning, all the tax-paying, all the years and years of caring for her once-brilliant, always idiosyncratic, beautiful, caring, damaged husband. And all this while continuing to practice and play the violin everywhere and anywhere she could.

What hits me, now that I’m a single mother, was how alone she was in so many ways and how faithfully and abidingly she loved him. She never abandoned him. I can’t imagine that she imagined abandoning him. Sometimes she got angry; often she got tired, slumping at the end of the day with a bag of gummi worms and a crossword puzzle before some silly episode of “Magnum: P.I.” (“That man is so handsome,” she’d say. “Your father was that handsome. Handsomer. Hoo-boy.”) Her own health wasn’t great, and I often thought she stayed alive and moving forward on the steam of everyday busy-ness.

And love. “Jeannie,” my dad would say, “I worship you,” and she’d wave him off with a “cut that out.” But then she’d get up and kiss him, go off and cook for him, snap on the radio and work at the stove as he sat at the table behind her. They listened to the news together, then ate together, then he did the dishes and she did the bills. It wasn’t shirtless or sexy or giddy or brash; it wasn’t flush with desire in the sunshine. But it was love.