Eddie and I get to the front of the line. I remember Ruth’s order, even the sauces, and Eddie knew Ellie’s sandwich order without asking. We come out holding four plastic sandwich bags. Ellie is waiting by the front of the RV, and I catch the slight nod she gives Eddie, a We’re okay, I got this kind of nod. As we get closer to the RV, I can hear Ruth on the other side, her voice an angry whisper.

“Because I’m old enough to make these decisions for myself, Mom,” says Ruth. “It is so cliché that you are still treating me like a child.”

A voice in my head responds, It’s so cliché that you’re acting like one. That voice scares me. I try to ignore it, keep it behind a locked door.

It’s only another few seconds until Ruth comes around the corner and holds her phone out to Ellie. “She wants to talk to you.”

My stomach plays one quick chord of wanting to talk to Mom myself. Of wanting to hold the phone while Mom says she knows how hard this whole thing must have been for me.

That stomach knot comes from that same deep place in me, a place I try to keep the door shut on, a place where it would feel so utterly satisfying to put my head back and scream, Everybody just shut up and be happy!

We step up into the RV. Eddie starts the engine and we pull out of the gas station. I spread the sandwiches out on the table and start sorting them, but Ruth is huddled into her earbuds, so I eat alone.

Still, I watch my sister. Her face is carefully blank, and she’s staring at her iPod, clicking the pen in her hand and jotting in her notebook. Again and again I wonder what she’s thinking. Does she regret what she did? Or is it more a sense of righteous indignation? Is she annoyed by all the fuss and worry? Is she thinking about what other people think at all?

Up at the front Ellie speaks quietly into the phone, mostly hmms and yeses and please don’t worries.

There are still four more hours until Houston. Four more hours until we reach my plan for Something Old, and I try to hold on to that thought. Despite the tense lunch, and even though my Something New plan didn’t go like I wanted, we’re heading to a new city, and a new chance for the treasure shots.