Chapter 1
I set my phone on the kitchen table and stare at Kwemby’s reply. “Bring back stories.” He always knows exactly how to cut through my anxieties and remind me exactly what my end goals are.
I type: “Will try to find something interesting to report. Might be tough with this crowd, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.” I pause, then add: “How’s the new diner coming along?”
Kwemby and I have been friends for thirty years, which is five years longer than Buck and I have been married. During all this time, Kwemby and I send occasional life-updated texts and have the rare lunch together at least once year. We’ve been careful not to step past any boundaries, because I’m married.
Kwemby’s reply comes a minute later: “Got good bones. Roof leaks in the kitchen. Floor’s drying though. You’d be proud.”
My face softens. I imagine him at the diner, coffee cup in hand, surveying the damage with that steady look of his. Having worked at a roadside diner for twenty years, about ten years ago he started purchasing other small diners from retirees to rehab and run.
“Harriet?” Buck’s voice cuts through from the living room. “You almost ready?”
“Yeah, just finishing up my convo with Kwemby!” I call back. I’ve never had anything to hide from my husband and don’t plan on starting now.
I type one last message: “Got to go. Talk soon. Good luck!”
My tote bag sits by the door, packed with my phone charger, headache medicine, clothes, and other overnight essentials. Next to it is Buck’s gym bag, which I packed for him this morning after he left for work. I even remembered his special dandruff shampoo. It’s horrible this time of year.
Keys jangle from the front hall, telling me Buck is getting restless. Me too, though not for the same reasons. My family is busy. As a grocery store manager, Buck works forty-hours a week, leaving me alone much of the week. Not that I’m not busy myself (I volunteer at the local animal shelter twice weekly, in addition to tracking our personal bookkeeping and keeping our house running). Being adults, our twin girls are on the go all the time, too. So getting the chance to spend naturally, no pressure time with my family during the road trip to Buck’s brother’s house feels like a blessing.
“Girls!” Buck calls up the stairs. “Let’s go! Your uncle’s waiting!”
Footsteps thud overhead. The twins, identical in everything except math skills, clatter down the stairs with their overnight bags. Coris, the older by seven minutes, is already on her phone, thumbs flying across the screen. Maren follows, earbuds in, nodding to some private beat. This is titled The Last Road Trip by Audrey Halliwell. If you are not reading this on her Inkitt, it has been stolen.
“You grabbed everything from your place?” I ask. Coris and Maren are graduate students at our state university. They share a nice, but modest, apartment right outside campus.
Coris nods without looking up. “Yep.”
“I put extra towels in your bag,” I say.
This gets me a half-second of eye contact. “Thanks, Mom.” Then she’s back to her screen.
They sweep past me to the front door with that particular indifference of twenty-two-year-olds who have outgrown needing their mother for anything except laundry and holiday meals.
Buck appears in the doorway, car keys swinging from his finger. Together, we head to the car where I settle into the passenger seat of Buck’s SUV, adjusting the seat belt across my chest. Behind me, the twins have claimed their usual spots—Coris behind Buck, Maren behind me.
Buck starts the car and backs out of the driveway.
“How was your week at the store?” I ask, folding my hands in my lap.
“Fine,” he says, not taking his eyes off the road.
The radio is already on some sports talk show with two men arguing about a player’s contract. Buck turns it up a notch.
“Any word on when the remodel is starting?”
He grunts in response. Okay, this is my fault. Naturally, he doesn’t want to talk about work. I wouldn’t want to on my day off either.
“I downloaded a trivia app,” I say, pulling out my phone. “It’s got all kinds of categories. Might be fun to play together.”
“I’m focused on driving, Harriet,” Buck says, voice flat.
“Oh, we don’t have to play a game then. Do you think your brother and Christine will mind that we’re not bring a dish?” I was raised to always bring something homemade to people’s home while visiting, and I was going to this time, but Buck said Gary and Christine were making dinner, and I didn’t want to impose. As long as we don’t have fish—I’m allergic—I’m okay eating anything.
“I don’t know, Harriet. Can we please not talk?”
From the backseat, there’s not a word. Just the occasional tap of fingers on glass from the girls’ phones. I’ll give everyone a few minutes to themselves. Perhaps it’s selfish of me to expect conversation so quickly. After all, we have about two hours of this drive. There’ll be time.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. Let’s take turns picking songs,” I offer, instead.
Buck reaches for the dial and changes the station. Now it’s classic rock.
“Okaaay, you can go first,” I say.
Buck points at the center consult without looking at it, and asks me to pull out the bottle of water in there. I do.
“Thirsty?” I ask.
“I got that for you.”
My chest warms despite being refuted for quality time. He thought of me. It’s such a small thing, but it means so much to me.
“Thank you,” I say, unscrewing the cap.
The water is cool going down, yet a little sweet. Wondering if he put in one of those flavoring packs, I take another sip, then another. The bottle is half empty when I finally set it in the cup holder beside me.
We merge onto the highway, heading north toward Buck’s brother’s place. I close my eyes for just a moment, letting the motion of the car lull me.
When I open them, something feels wrong. My eyelids are too heavy, my vision slightly blurred at the edges. I blink hard, trying to focus on the road signs flashing past the window.
“You okay?” Buck asks, not turning.
“Fine,” I say, the word coming out slower than I intended. “Just tired.”
He nods. “Rest. I’ve got this.”
My head tips toward the window before falling and smacking against it. Ouch. I straighten with effort, forcing my spine against the seat. It’s difficult to move. The car feels like it’s moving too fast now, or maybe I’m moving too slow. My hands feel strange in my lap, like they belong to someone else.
“Mom?” One of the twins—Coris, I think—says from the back. “You look weird.”
“I’m fine,” I say again, but the words are thick in my mouth.
My phone is in my pocket. I should text Kwemby. He’d know what to do. He’d know what’s going on. But my arms won’t move, and underneath that, there is the guilt I get sometimes. Kwemby asked me out before Buck and I even met. Not wanting to ruin our friendship, I said no. Yet, late at night, sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like had I said yes. Don’t get me wrong, I love my life and my girls, but every now and then it seems like Buck merely tolerates me. Deep down, I know Kwemby and I would have had more passion.
