Halfwide — Teddy Jones

Maybe it's not fraud; it's probably not a felony, either. But, going along with her husband's latest adventure, a road trip on which she is to impersonate a visitor in several West Texas hospitals, makes Dorothy Faye Bell feel like a criminal. The trip's events cause a storm of emotion which clears only after she finds a person she had forgotten, or never really knew, herself. Hers is a story of the search for purpose in midlife, spiced with West Texas characters and her own brand of humor. Her part in Harold's scheme is to justify parking their only dwelling, a twenty-eight foot travel trailer, on the hospitals' visitor parking lots �" free �" by posing as a visitor. That's no surprise �" he always has some odd scheme underway. After thirty-three years of marriage, Dorothy Faye does what she thinks a good wife should. She quits her job as a care attendant, packs her New York Times Crossword Puzzles book and not much else, leaves their home of twenty years, and hits the road, smiling even when she's irritated. This tale of two West Texans' journey in Summer, 2000 takes the reader into hospital waiting rooms and other unlikely places where some of the people she meets benefit from Dorothy Faye's “visits.” The story traverses the dual arcs of Dorothy Faye's and Harold's quests. He searches for answers to his secret health concerns and she for a purpose other than being Harold's wife. She finds her answers. And Harold continues being Harold.