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Glenn is all smiles as he disappears into the bathroom to shower and change. I don’t even have to try to pretend that I’m walking on clouds. After finishing my task of packing the luggage, I go downstairs to the kitchen to put together a couple of lunches to keep us refreshed while on the road.
It’s a two-hour drive to the cabin, and no doubt we will stop on the way, but there is something about a nice picnic lunch that always sparks a feeling of nostalgia in me. I just can’t pass it up.
Four ham and cheese sandwiches, bottles of water, snack cakes, and assorted fruits and veggies packed into a cooler later, I’m ready to hit the open road.
Once we have the car packed, we’re pulling onto the old highway an hour later. Normally, I would have rolled my eyes and requested that we take the interstate so we could arrive faster and shorten the duration of the torture of having to be in such close quarters with each other, but today I’m content with taking the scenic route. It has more to attract the eye, and I find that bubbly, exuberant sensation that’d sprung to life in my stomach since the moment my place was solidified, grow.
I know without a doubt, as the sun glitters across the lush forest vegetation and creates mini mirages on the road ahead that I’m finally—finally!—on the right path.
The path to freedom.
An hour into the drive, Glenn finds a nice spot to pull over for a bit of lunch. It is a triangular patch of grass about the size of a city block, with a small playground at its farthermost end shaded by a few maple trees, and a couple of weathered jean-blue wooden benches and one matching picnic table for seating. The squat wooden sign at the tip of the triangle declares it Peter Navarre’s park, and as we walk the short distance from the car to the table, I can’t help thinking how depressing it must be to be the namesake of a leftover piece of land, as if this Navarre guy was nothing more than an afterthought.
On that note, if the man who was likely long dead could speak on it, I’d bet I could commiserate.
“This is nice,” Glenn comments as we sit opposite each other and munch on our sandwiches. The sun is warm, the breeze cool, and I detect a hint of petunias in the air. “Remember when we used to go to the park and walk the trails?”
I smile fondly, remembering those days when we’d begun to grow apart. We used to be close, spending all of our free time together. Just a simple walk in the park had been invigorating. I always enjoyed the silence, with nothing but the damp sound of our feet on the hard-packed earth, my breath in my ears, and the sounds of nature alive all around us to fill it all in.
Those were good times.
If only we could go back.
But time didn’t move backward, and that was all water under the bridge now. As much as I wanted to hold onto that feeling of closeness we have going on now, I know it’s nothing but a lark. A moment in time meant to derail my plans, and the moment I did, everything would be just like it had been for years—bad.
I’m not interested in looking backward anymore. I have my sights set on the future, and I aim to keep my focus.
“I loved those trails,” I comment. “Been a while.”
“Been a while since we did much of anything together, you and me.” Glenn has that hurt puppy dog look in his eyes as if the thought of us growing apart hurts him, but if it does, I reason, then he wouldn’t have spent so much time dedicated to making my every day more miserable than the last.
I draw in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Dusting the crumbs from my shirt and pants, I crumple up the plastic bags that contained the sandwiches. “It’s good we’re taking this weekend.”
I don’t want to ruin the moment by expounding on my thoughts. Then I might say something like, “It’s good we’re taking this weekend…so I can kill you!” or “It’s good we’re taking this weekend…because it’s the last one you’ll ever have, so enjoy it!”
Yes, my thoughts are decidedly dark, but it all depends on one’s perspective. I am of the mind that my so-called “dark thoughts” are actually very bright and cheery and uplifting. Of course, I will be the one benefiting from it.
Greatly.
Glenn appears in good spirits again, now that he assumes we are on the same page, and with an outreached hand, he takes mine and guides us back to the car to finish our journey across state lines.
Between stopping for bathroom breaks and to take in various scenery that was too pretty to pass up, complete with happy couple photo ops, we manage to extend our drive to nearly four hours. Only further extended when Glenn decided it would be better to grab a late dinner before reaching our final destination, so we don’t wake up famished in the middle of the night. Meaning, Glenn was already hungry, and he wasn’t going to last much longer. Whereas I was still comfortably full from our big lunch and would have been perfectly fine continuing on and waiting until breakfast for another meal.
Still, I agreed without a fuss because every man deserves one last meal of their choosing before biting the big one.
No doubt, Glenn will enjoy several.
Turning the key to the old locks takes some finesse and patience. When Glenn finally swings the door open on its creaky hinges and steps inside, leaving me to follow behind like the gentleman he isn’t, I’m dead on my feet.
Since the cabin has been shut up for a solid year-plus, the smell of dust and earth clings in the stale air. White sheets cover the furniture and the yellowed curtains are drawn, just as we left it.
There isn’t any food in the cabin, but there are clean linens in the hall cabinet, and that is what I’m focused on. I need to get a good night’s rest so I can approach the new day with a fresh mind.
There will be no room for mistakes.
“I’m going to get the water running and turn on the air,” Glenn announces as he walks deeper into the cabin.
That leaves only one, hugely important task to me: getting the luggage.
