21. Twenty-one
We are lost.
In Idaho.
Looking for dinosaur bones nobody wants to see.
Because Travis wrote it on his list.
The sweat that streams down my back is a constant reminder of how annoyed I am and how much I hate the Avion.
And dinosaurs.
“Are you sure this is right, Finn? This seems like private property.”
I lean forward as we bump down a dusty road, and my eyes linger on a fence and sign that clearly says No Trespassing.
“It says we turn right in a half-mile.” He holds up my phone. “We’re only a couple miles away. I can see the dot. Shoot. I lost service.”
He moves his arm around the cab, trying to find service that clearly doesn’t exist.
If Travis were here, I’d punch him square in the nose.
Finn points to a patch of grass. “Turn here.”
“Finn, there’s no road. I can’t drive on that.” I bounce with a jolt as the rocks beneath us get bigger. “Okay, you know what?” I slam on the breaks. “I’m turning around. This is stupid. It’s too hot to look for bones we don’t even know if we’re going to find.”
“Thank God!” Marin blurts as she fans herself with a book in the back.
I slowly work to do a three-point turn on the narrow rocky road while Finn fumbles with the phone, ultimately dropping it in the crack between the seat and door.
“Now where?”
Finn’s head is smashed against the door, and his voice is a muffled shout.
“How am I supposed to know? I can’t reach the phone.”
“Do you hear that?” Marin’s eyebrows pinch together in my rearview mirror.
“Wha—” I hear it before I can finish the word. There’s a hiss. A snake?
The hissing is loud, steady, and completely out of place as we wobble to a stop.
Finn’s head shoots up, eyes wide.
“No!” he shouts. “No, no, no.”
He flings the door open and runs around to the back of Avion. I see him in my side mirror. He looks down, shoves his palms in his eyes, then drops his head back with a groan.
I swing my door open and walk to him.
Now I groan.
There, lodged in the driver’s side rear tire, is a sharp rock ripping through the tread as air angrily blows out of it.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!”
I lean my head back and yell before dropping my arms by my side. My hands clench into fists, and I scream like an actual lunatic in the middle of nowhere. We have a flat tire. We’re lost. It’s million damn degrees.
I take a long breath and a longer blink.
Marin’s here.
She groans.
Our groans all mean the same thing—this fucking sucks.
“Okay,” I finally say, knowing as the adult I have to keep us moving forward somehow. “Okay, we can handle this. Finn, you know how to change the tire, right? I mean, the basic steps? Marin and I can help you with whatever you need.”
“Yeah, I can get it started. Let me just dig the jack out from the storage under my bed, and the tire on the back should be easy enough to get off.”
There is no enthusiasm in his voice.
“Great. Marin—you make us some snacks while Finn gets started, okay? And I think there’s a map or something in the glove box. I’ll see if I can find where we are and get us the hell out of here.”
My confidence is a lie.
I doubt this is even a marked road, much less one on a map. For all I know, this was where we are going to sit until we die and then ironically someone will find our bones.
When I click open the glove box, the crammed-in worn road atlas pops free. Before spreading it across the hood, I give into the sudden urge to slam the ripped-up book down.
I do it again.
Somehow, in this Idaho wilderness-induced breakdown, I find relief in beating the hell out of the Avion with a book so old the cover is faded beyond recognition filled with stained yellow pages no longer bound together.
I raise the atlas up and slam it back down.
“Stupid!” Thwack. “Dinosaur!” Thwack. “Bones!” Thwack.
“Want to throw a wine glass next?” Marin stands holding a plate of fruit and cheese, unamused as she watches my tantrum.
I level her with a glare as I snatch the plate from her and set it on the hood.
“Real mature, Penelope,” she says before walking back to help Finn.
I fumble to pick up pages that have scattered across the ground when I see it—a piece of notebook paper.
The handwriting makes me stop breathing.
Travis.
The sun no longer feels hot, and my heart no longer beats as I pick it up, praying it won’t slip like the desert sand through my fingers.
Well, Nel,it starts, and my heart wilts like a flower at the two familiar words.
We must be in some kind of trouble if you’re reading this. I purposefully tucked this note in the atlas, somewhere I know you’d never willingly look unless we were lost. So, we must be lost, and you must be pretty pissed.
I can only hope we are at least somewhere fun, so if you make me hitchhike, I’ll come home with a good story.
I pause to laugh. This dusty road in Idaho is as far from fun as it gets.
I have no doubt wherever we are supposed to be going is somewhere I picked. I want you to know, wherever it is, I don’t care if we go. We can turn around right now. I have you—there’s nothing else I need to see.
You decide where we go from here—I can find a t-shirt anywhere.
Love you,
Travis
I stare at the paper, speechless. Emotion erupts in me like a volcano as I clench the paper so tightly my hand shakes.
I can see him—leaning on the hood and trying not to smile about how mad I am.
But he isn’t here. The letter is years old, and he’s gone. Lost to the sky and the sea. Life yanks the rug out from underneath me all over again.
I re-read it, every sentence a needle in my heart.
I try to breathe, but the oxygen feels like it’s laced with shards of glass that slice every part of me when I inhale. My knees give out, and I hit the jagged rock-covered road as a sob rips out of my throat.
I look at the letter in my hand like it is both the thing that will kill me and the elixir of life.
Then a question crashes into me like a meteor—what were we doing here?
This trip, all our planning, has been an ode to Travis. We’ve gone to all the places he had wanted to go. Why? Am I looking for him? Do I expect to find him standing in a fossil bed?
Of course not.
I’ve been holding onto him. I’ve been going to the places he wanted to go, not so I can move on, but so I can hold on—to him, to us, to the future that was robbed from us by a fluke storm over the Gulf of Mexico.
I read the words again and wipe the final tears that fall down my face.
You decide where we go from here.
I sit on the ground, jagged rocks digging into the backs of my thighs, and force my eyes shut.
Inhale for four, exhale for four.
The Avion jolts angrily behind my back from something Finn does with the tire.
I look out at the beautifully lonely Idaho landscape, the red tips of the grass sway just barely from a breeze so soft I’d miss it if I wasn’t paying attention.
I know where I want to go.
***
“Maine?” Finn yells over the wind as we barrel down the highway. “Was that even on Dad’s list?”
“It was not. But you know, I’ve always wanted to go there and have never made it. And if we look at the list, how many of those places do we actually want to see?” I ask him as I point us east.
As if I even need to remind him of the dinosaur bones we tried to find just hours ago.
It took an hour and a half to get the tire changed and figure out where the hell we were, but we’re finally back on the road.
Maine bound.
“I was just thinking, we spent the first half of this trip doing what your dad wanted, which was great. But I don’t care if we see something called the Corn Palace or the World’s Biggest Truck Stop or Carhenge, do you?”
Windy silence.
“We can get to Maine in three days and spend the rest of the summer on the coast and eating lobster. Doesn’t that sound…” I search for a convincing word. “Relaxing?”
“Sure, Mom.”
He leans his head on the seat and looks out the window as the wind blows his hair around.
If I’d been traveling to hold on to Travis, this was my opportunity to let him go. To find a way to move forward, even if it’s just a step.
My eyes look toward the horizon.
I smile. We’re going to Maine.
It’s only after the decision is made and we are somewhere in Wyoming when Ethan’s next email comes through.
Penelope,
The coast is great, but the mountains are better. If you get close enough, they pull you in and never let you go.
I’m nervous about your secret-keeping skills but seeing as you’re at the opposite end of the country from me and you’ve already made it clear you have no intention of finding yourself here, I’ll tell you an easy one: I sleep naked.
What?!I drop the phone like it’s on fire with an audible gasp before working up the nerve to finish reading it.
If our paths ever cross and I bring it up, you’ll have to keep a straight face, or I’ll consider it a secret spilled. Then you’ll owe me one.
Maybe it’s been trouble to you, but it hasn’t to me.
Ethan
I only read it once—because what the hell am I even supposed to do with that?