Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“You’ll be great,” he said. “Just take it slow. And I’m right here.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I pressed my lips together, then started the car. That felt all right, so I put it in gear and slowly exited the hotel parking lot.

“You okay?” he asked as I carefully merged onto the main road.

“I think so,” I said. I braked at the stoplight, aware of how hard I was concentrating, but feeling like I had it under control. I thought that it might actually be easier once we got on the highway, when there would be less stopping and starting.

“Want me to be the DJ?” Roger asked, looking down at the iPod.

“Maybe in just a minute,” I said, realizing that I’d gone back to the way I used to need silence in the car when I was first learning. “I’m concentrating here.”

“No problem,” he said, leaning back in the passenger seat. “I actually like it over here. It’s very peaceful. You might be driving for the rest of the trip.”

The sentence hung in the air between us, and I felt the weight of it. There was no more rest of the trip. The trip was over.

I pulled onto the highway and merged into the middle lane, which had always been my preferred lane. I never wanted to go as fast as the drivers in the left lane, and in the right lane there were always too many people merging. Once I hit seventy, I was doing the same speed as the rest of the cars and was able to relax a little. It was okay. It wasn’t a joy like it had once been, but it was okay. I was driving. And I was fine.

Roger had offered to stop at one of the many roadside diners we’d seen advertised on the highway—it seemed that Pennsylvania was diner country. But when I’d seen the sign for the burger place, I’d known that’s where we had to stop for lunch.

We had gotten the burgers to go, then parked in the farthest space in the parking lot. We were eating in the way-back, containers of fries sitting between us, our legs dangling over the edge.

“This is great,” Roger said, and I saw that his burger was almost gone. “Maybe there’s something good about Pennsylvania after all.”

I smiled and took a bite of my own burger, which really was excellent, and adjusted my new sunglasses. And I realized that we’d sat in this same place and eaten burgers from the In-N-Out in California on the very first day of the trip. The day we’d decided to take a detour. Just a small one. I looked across at Roger, who was so familiar to me now.

“Last one?” Roger asked, angling the fries toward me.

I shook my head. “All yours.”

He finished the fries and stood up as I stuffed the trash into the Burgertown bag. Roger shut the back door, then turned to me and took my hand in his carefully, like he was still getting used to doing this. “Want me to take over driving, Hillary?” he asked.

With my other hand, I took the keys out of my pocket and shook my head, smiling at him. “I’ve got it, Edmund.”

After I’d been driving for another hour, I could handle having music on again. Roger made his last mix, and I recognized some of his repeat bands, some of my favorites – bands I hadn’t even heard of a few days ago. I sang along to the words that I knew, and Roger kept time, drumming on the dashboard.

As I drove, I tried to picture what the rest of the day would be like. I played out the scenarios of Roger coming back with me and facing my mother’s anger. Roger standing around while she yelled at me in some kitchen I couldn’t even picture, with a fridge free from magnets. I thought about someone else watching our goodbye, even if we didn’t use those exact words.

I glanced down at the gas gauge, which was hovering close to empty. Pulling off at the next exit, I headed for a Sunoco. “Here’s a thought,” I said as I carefully pulled forward to the pump and killed the engine. Roger turned to look at me. “What if I dropped you off in Philadelphia and drove myself to Connecticut?”

Roger shook his head. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“I’ll be okay,” I promised. “Really. And it makes more sense this way.” Roger got out of the car and unscrewed the gas cap. I could tell he was thinking it over. I walked inside the mini-mart to prepay with cash, hoping it would be enough to get us to Philly. When I got back to the car, Roger was pumping gas.

“I’m okay with driving,” I assured him, as I squeegeed the dead-bug graveyard off our windshield. “Really. And it doesn’t make any sense for you to drive with me to Connecticut only to get back on a train to Philadelphia.”

“But you just started driving again,” Roger said, replacing the gas cap and shutting the fuel door. “I don’t know if you should drive alone yet.”

I replaced the squeegee and walked over to him. “I’m going to be fine,” I said. “And this way, I can spare you the wrath of my mother.”

Roger put his arms around me and I leaned my head into his chest. We stayed that way until a honk behind us let us know that people were waiting for the pump. I passed him the keys. He got behind the wheel and I got back into the passenger side, and we headed to the last leg of our journey.

Good-bye, so long, farewell …

—Paul Tiernan

Twenty miles outside of Philadelphia, I began to break down. It seemed that all too soon, there were signs every few feet, telling me just how close Philadelphia was. Roger was holding my hand between our seats, but I was having trouble even looking at him, choosing instead to stare out the window, and not able to think about anything except how in a very few minutes, he’d be gone.

“You okay?” Roger asked, as he turned down a residential street.

“I don’t think so,” I said, still looking out my window.

“Well, I think we’re almost there,” he said, slowing down and squinting at the numbers on his side.

“That’s not really helping,” I said, trying to keep my voice light and utterly failing. Roger looked over at me for a moment, then pulled to the side of the road. I looked around—we were between two houses. “Are we here?” I asked, confused.

“I think it’s up there,” he said, looking from the address in his phone to a driveway a few feet away. “I just wanted a little privacy.” He killed the engine, left the keys in the ignition, and turned to me, unbuckling his seat belt and then mine.

“What now?” I asked, hoping that he had some sort of a plan.