on the floor instead of on the bed. I step over and around things as I peek at the room, and then, as an afterthought, I pick up the Emily Dickinson book, which is still on the coffee table. I flick the rubber band guiltily: it’s been years since I read poetry, let alone this poetry, but the notion of transformation during this road trip seems to be sticking. I put the book in my bag, along with the other props of my nascent artistic life, and head back up the stairs.
After we say our goodbyes to Teddy—I manage to plant a kiss on his cheek and extract a half hug out of him before Gary forces a bear hug—we get into the car. Gary backs out of the driveway slowly, while they—Nick and Phoebe and Teddy and the dog—our doppelg?nger family—wave from the doorway. We wave back. I can’t help but think, sadly, that this is the first time we have ever left for a road trip without having Teddy with us, either strapped into his car seat or belted into a booster seat behind us. The vision of him on the front steps—lanky, awkward, turning back toward the house before we’re even gone—makes me sad, and Gary, too, though he won’t admit it. It’s why, halfway down the street, neither of us has said a word. Suddenly, The Forehead’s retreat doesn’t seem like such a great idea. What was I thinking, leaving Teddy—and the dog!—alone with virtual strangers who will probably ignore our pet and starve our child. What is wrong with me?
“Well this is fun!” Gary says as he pulls onto the highway with a lilt in his voice. The false cheer means he’s lying. “And if it’s not fun, we can always leave early!”
“We can’t leave early. Not for what I paid for the workshop and spent on vegan food for the Puppets at Whole Foods.”
Gary looks at me. “They’re not vegan.”
“Of course they are. They’re puppets!”
“They’re not. In fact, Nick asked me where they could get ribs.”
I fling myself back against the headrest. “This is why we’re broke.”
“You should have told me you were doing a shop!”
“You should have told me you had the food-preferences talk!”
I recline the seat and try to close my eyes, knowing I should check my hotel app for last-minute lodging for the following night, but it isn’t long before I feel the car slow to a crawl. Sitting up, I see the traffic stalled, snaking along the posted signs for scheduled construction. Gary grabs his phone and opens his favorite GPS app—Waze—which is the opposite of my favorite GPS app—Google Maps. In minutes, he’s being bossed around to get off the Mass. Pike and rerouted onto secondary roads.
“Why bother?” I say. “It’s always wrong.”
“It’s not always wrong.”
“Why do you always defend her?”
“Because she’s always right.”
But within minutes, just as I’d predicted, we’re lost, miles past the last strip malls and gas stations and fast-food outposts. I turn my app on instead, which leads us back onto the same highway his app had instructed us to leave. Gary turns to me, expecting a snarky remark, but I say nothing, and we drive in silence: him looking at the road, me looking out the window at the blur of colorful foliage whipping past us. When Gary’s phone buzzes with a text notification, I’m tempted to grab it and see if it’s from the CEO, but he grabs it first, turning it off before either of us can see it.
“So let’s talk,” I say.
“Later.”
“Suddenly you’re the reluctant one.”
“I’m not reluctant. I just don’t see what the rush is. We’ve been in the car for five minutes. Neither of us is going anywhere.”
I pretend to be annoyed but secretly I’m grateful for the reprieve. Anything to delay the inevitable parsing of our marriage. I hand him a piece of the nut bar I’ve just torn open from our snack bag—dark chocolate maple bacon coconut almond quinoa Paleo Dream. “It’s really good,” I whisper, though it tastes like wood dust and broken dreams and death.
* * *
In an hour we’ve crossed the state line from Massachusetts into New Hampshire, and an hour after that we’re in front of Gary’s mother’s once-grand Colonial, peeling white with green shutters, circular gravel driveway, dormers and gables and mullioned windows and old rugs in tatters that always fascinated me, someone who was exposed to the color-coordinated wall-to-wall carpeting and drapery and scalloped window shades of the Early American Jew