Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“Put them on,” he said, and he no longer seemed tired at all. He seemed more excited that I had ever seen before.

“But I’m wearing flip-flops,” I explained, wondering if maybe Roger had been driving too long.

“Just do it,” he said, smiling at me. “Seriously.” I shrugged and took off my flip-flops. I pulled on the socks, hoping we wouldn’t get in trouble for wearing them without buying them first. “Ready?” he asked, as I straightened up.

“For what—,” I started. But Roger grabbed my hand and began running down one of the gleaming aisles, pulling me behind him. I stopped protesting and just ran with him, tightening my fingers around his for just a second. Then he let go of my hand, stopped running, and slid down the length of empty aisle in his socks.

He turned back to me, grinning. “You have got to try this,” he called.

I didn’t worry about how it was dangerous, how one of us might get hurt. I just took off at a run down the toothpaste aisle. I didn’t think about what I was doing. I just ran full-out, then stopped and let momentum carry me down the rest of the aisle, faster than I’d been expecting. It was scary and thrilling and it felt, slipping on new socks down an empty Wal-Mart aisle, like I was free. Roger, laughing, slid to my side and took my hands in his. He spun me around and I let go, letting myself twirl, the brightly colored displays all around me turning to a blur. Roger turned in the other direction and started running, then sliding, almost falling, windmilling his arms to stay upright. By the time I caught up with him, almost crashing into a Crest display, I was laughing harder than I had in a long, long time.

“These too,” Roger said, handing the empty sock package to the one cashier still open. She raised her eyebrows, but just scanned it without comment. I put my flip-flops back on, still a little out of breath. In the glass opposite the cashier’s station, I caught sight of my reflection and almost didn’t recognize myself. My hair was messed up, my shirt was wrinkled, and I looked happy. I looked like I’d just been having fun. Which was exactly, I realized, what I’d been doing.

“What’s with all the RVs out there?” Roger asked, as she bagged our items.

“Wal-Mart policy,” she said. “Free overnight parking. That’ll be thirty forty-five.”

Roger met my eyes as I pulled out the money we had left to pay for our snacks and socks. I had a feeling we’d both just had the same thought.

I hadn’t folded down the backseats in a while, but after a few tries, I got them down, turning the whole back of the Jeep into an open area, one that would hopefully give us enough room to sleep comfortably. Roger had gone back inside to buy a blanket and two pillows. While he was gone, I’d changed in the front seat, pulling on the tank top I’d worn the night before. But since it was still warm out, I’d grabbed a pair of Bronwyn’s shorts. They had looked okay from the front, but when I held them up I saw that TEXAS FOREVER was printed across the butt. They also were a little shorter than I might have preferred, but I figured I could deal with it for one night. After I got changed, I took out my phone and saw I had a missed call from my mother. She hadn’t left a message, but she had called. I punched in the number for her cell, and at the last moment, added the code to send a message right to voice mail.

“Hi, Mom,” I said. “I, um, saw you called. I’m fine. We’re in Asheville right now. I’m going to try to see Charlie tomorrow.” I stopped and took a breath before continuing. “I went to Graceland today. I was wondering—did you know how old Dad was when he went there?” I paused again, feeling like I’d just pushed open a door. We hadn’t talked about my father at all. Not even the good stuff that we remembered. Not even the stuff we wanted to celebrate. “I was just wondering. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I’m doing okay.”

I closed my phone, my throat feeling tight. I held the phone in my hand for just a minute longer, in case she called back. But it was late, and she was probably asleep, alone in our new house. It struck me for the first time that my mother had also spent the past month alone. I hadn’t really been able to think beyond myself—I hadn’t even realized we’d been in the same situation. I saw Roger heading up from the store and shut my phone off to conserve the battery, dropping it next to my father’s book in my purse.

Roger must have changed in the Wal-Mart bathroom, as he was back in his T-shirt and shorts that I now knew well. He opened the back door and tossed me the blanket and pillows. I placed the pillows by the door, so our feet would face the front seats. Julia, who’d gone through a big “energy healing” phase last year, could have told me if this was the proper car feng shui. But Julia was finally giving up on me, if the title of her last e-mail was anything to go by.

Roger started the car, shaking me out of these thoughts, and cracked all four windows. Even so, it was hot in the back. Clearly we could have saved the $9.99 he’d spent on the blanket. I passed him the suitcases from the back, and he piled our bags on the passenger seat, my owl resting on top. Then he killed the engine, locked the car from the inside, and climbed over the driver’s seat and into the back. I moved over to the left side—my side—to try and give him room. But it was really close quarters in the back, something I hadn’t really thought through. I lay down, resting my head on the brand-new pillow and seeing that Roger was now nearer to me than he had been in any of the beds we’d shared. But I found that I didn’t mind so much this time. The blanket was down by our feet, and I was really aware of him next to me, without a sheet or blanket covering us, his bare legs just a handspan away from mine.

I rolled onto my back and looked up, through the back window, trying to see the stars. But the parking lot floodlights must have been too bright, and all I could see was the inside of the car, reflected back at me. “’Night,” I said, turning my head to look at Roger, expecting him to be half-asleep already, as usual.

But he was turning from side to side, and kicking the blanket even farther away from him. “I’m hot,” he said, pulling at his T-shirt. “Aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” I said. Now that we were both in the back, it seemed even hotter back there. And the air felt still, like the heat was pressing down on us. “But then, I’m not the space heater.”

“I know,” he groaned. “It’s like an oven in here.”