34. Thirty-four
The tow truck driver is a man named Tony. Tony is a large, hairy man who wears a stained t-shirt and chain-smokes cigarettes in the cab of his truck with the windows up. He has more hair coming out of the collar of his shirt than most men have on their entire bodies.
His voice is reflective of how much he likes cigarettes and sounds like someone ran a hand mixer over his larynx. His northeastern accent is thick, and he ends almost every other sentence with the phrase, ya see.
Tony drives me fucking crazy.
“I don’t usually come up this far north, ya see. It’s lucky you got a hold of me. Bar Harbor’s nice if you’re into that sort of thing. My old lady and I don’t go there much because it’s for rich people, ya see. You folks rich or something?” He pauses but not long enough for anyone to answer. “Judging by that hunk of junk I’m hauling behind me, I don’t take yous as rich folks.”
He blows smoke into my face, causing me to fall into yet another coughing fit.
“Sorry about the smell,” he continues. “Had some old McDonalds on the floorboard, ya see.” He’s oblivious to the fact we might as well be riding in a hearse with the cancer he’s forcing down our lungs.
We sit crammed into the front seat like sardines—me next to Tony’s large belly, Finn squished next to me, and Marin wedged against the door.
“We come up to these mountains sometimes, ya see. My old lady and I like it up there, nice and quiet. Found a spot you can get all-you-can-eat ribs, ya see. Worth the trip every time.”
Another puff of smoke fills the cab.
“Tony, not to be a pain, but could you roll the windows down when you smoke? I’m just a little sensitive to it.” I try to swallow my cough, but it hacks out anyway.
“You one of those health freaks from the city? You’re not my first high-maintenance passenger, ya see. I think it’s a government conspiracy that they say smoking isn’t good for you. My uncle lived to be a hundred and smoked a pack a day, ya see. A pack a day!”
He shakes his head as if my request is absurd.
Ten minutes later, he lights another cigarette and does not roll the windows down.
When we finally arrive at the mechanic shop in Bar Harbor four hours later, we topple out of the cab of the tow truck in a cloud of smoke and smelling like we’ve been rolled in tobacco.
I thank Tony for his time. He smiles at me proudly and reveals a large silver tooth in the front of his mouth, then drives away.
Finn pinches the chest of his shirt and lifts it to his nose to sniff.
“God, we smell like ashtrays,” he says, face twisting in disgust.
“Wow,” I mutter, turning to the kids. “Okay. I’m going to go in and talk to these people, see what our options are. You can stick around, or there’s a welcome center across the street.” I point to the building. “Maybe something like that will be a little more entertaining and less depressing than what I’m about to deal with.”
They turn toward the welcome center; I drag myself into the mechanic’s office.
A woman behind the counter with a beehive of yellow hair, loudly smacking a piece of gum, smiles at me when I walk in.
“My RV got towed in. The Avion.” I point to the mangled mess of metal through the window. “A moose decided to run into it this morning and meet an untimely death. Anyway, I’m wondering if anyone will have a chance to look at it or tell me what can be done?”
I bite my lip as she looks at me and then out the window to the disaster of an RV sitting outside. Her face puckers like she’s sucked on a lemon.
“We don’t have anybody that can work on it today, but I have someone that can at least take a look—Jimmy!” she shouts the name without turning away, making me jump. “What do you think of the camper in the parking lot?” She smiles, lowering her voice. “He’ll take a look, and I’ll let you know.”
Minutes later, in walks a guy with a shaved head and a blue mechanic’s uniform with a nametag that says Jimmy.
“You got the RV?” he says, walking up to me, wiping his hands with a rag.
“Guilty.” I laugh half-heartedly.
“Yeah, so that thing’s totaled.”
He says it matter-of-factly. Like I’m not almost two thousand miles from home and any other running vehicle I own. Like he isn’t completely destroying all of my plans.
“Totaled?”
I squint, trying to process his words.
“Yeah, there’s no fixing that thing. I mean, you can if you want to, but you’re talking about a whole rebuild and lots of money.” He rubs his fingers together and whistles. “Vintage ride like that, parts are hard to come by and pricey. My opinion, you’re better off buying a new one. You’d probably save money.”
Then he lifts two fingers in a salute, spins around, and gives the girl at the counter a slap on the ass before disappearing through a door into the garage.
When Marin and Finn come back from the visitor’s center, they find me lying on a bench outside.
Crying.
“Oh, my God, Mom? What’s wrong?” Marin looks me up and down as if she expects to find gunshot wounds.
“The Avion’s totaled,” I say flatly, staring at the sky as tears drip down and pool into my ears.
Finn sits by my feet on the bench.
“Mom, it’s okay,” he says gently. “We all kind of hated that thing, anyway.”
I laugh meekly through my tears.
“What do you want to do now?” Marin asks.
“Right. Now,” I say, forcing myself to sit up. “I seem to forget when there’s a disaster, you have to do something next.”
The irony of the situation is not lost on me. Me not being able to cope after losing my husband led to me sitting on a bench, not being able to cope with losing his stupid camper. God has the sick sense of humor of a sociopath sometimes.
“Let’s get an Airbnb.” I wipe the snot from my nose with my smoke-laden shirt. “Let me see if I can find one. I’m not leaving this place without eating some damn lobster.”
“That’s the spirit!” Marin says with too much enthusiasm.
I click around on my phone until I find an available house.
“I found one! It’s perfect. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms… walkable to downtown!”
I perk up.
“Tony wasn’t wrong about how expensive it is, but it’s totally fine.”
Marin and Finn lean over my shoulder and look at the pictures.
“It has a washer and dryer. God bless America. I need to put my head in there after that ride with Tony,” Marin says.
A few clicks on my screen and a disgusting amount of money later, we have a mint green house with cheery floral landscaping in the middle of downtown Bar Harbor reserved for the next three weeks. I’m so excited I almost forget about all our stuff, mangled up RV, lack of transportation, and all-around terrible situation.
Eventually, we have a plan.
Using trash bags for luggage, we grab all our clothes, shoes, and a couple of the blankets that Marin and I had fallen in love with. Marin gets her microscopic bag of gold and the old-timey photo. I take the enormous canvas from the farmer’s market.
Finn gives me a look like, seriously? And I raise my eyebrows, daring him to challenge me on it.
I negotiate with the owner of the repair shop for him to keep the camper and scrap out the pieces if he just takes it off our hands.
While we wait for the Uber to come, a crushing feeling sweeps over me as I look at the Avion. I had come to hate the stupid camper—the size, heat, and all-around inconvenience of it—but it was also the vehicle that had carried all my broken pieces around and allowed me to slowly start putting them back together.
The air conditioner breaking while driving across the desert is one of the more awful things I have experienced in life, but it was Travis’ dream. He had picked it up, brought it home, and planned a trip. Now it’s going to be ripped to pieces and sent to a junkyard. It seems as if the most depressing moments of my life revolve around wreckage.
We’ll figure out how to get home, but this is the end of something. Surrounded by trash bags on the side of this Maine road, it feels an awful lot like goodbye.
“Mom?”
Sadness makes me sluggish as Marin leans on me.
“It’s goodbye, Mar.”
She looks at the Avion and wraps her arm around me.
“It is. But you know what?” She tilts her face toward me. “He would have loved everything we did and didn’t do.”
Finn stands next to us and looks at the mangled mess of metal in shades of 70s whites and browns and smiles.
“Thanks for the fun, Dad.”
Marin loops her arm through his, and we all stand there, knowing without saying it, something is changing.
“Uber’s here.”
Finn holds up my phone and points to the SUV that’s parked beside us.
“Goodbye, Travis.” It’s barely a whisper.
Holding the too-big canvas in the backseat, I stare out the window at the camper until it’s out of sight.
As guilty as I feel, there’s an unexpected relief, too.