Gary grabs the book out of my hands, holds it against his chest inside his jacket.

“I think the officer has been through enough already with our false alarm! Let’s not assault him with poetry!”

I look at him like he’s insane until sounds of static and then an “all clear” come from the police officer’s radio. They tell us we’re all set and to have a good trip.

“But no more breaking and entering, Thelma and Louise!”

Out of their car and on our way to our own, we smile warmly at the officers, then quickly drop the act. Gary continues to hug the book until we’re back in our own front seat.

I swat at him. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Why’d you bring that book?”

“For old times’ sake!”

Gary tries to shove the book under the front seat, but I wrestle it from him and hug it to my chest with both arms like a flotation device.

“Why were you trying to hide this?”

“Because it’s got my shit in it!” he whisper-hisses.

“But it’s medical marijuana! It’s legal!”

“Not this shit—it’s Nick’s! A special road-trip blend!”

I glare at him. “Really, Gary? Really? The first book you ever gave me and you put weed in it?” I remove the elastic band, open the cover of the book slowly, and see a deep square cut into all the pages. A miniature Altoids tin sits like an embedded jewel in the middle. I shake my head, hand him back the empty book and elastic band, then look out the window.

“God. How old are you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Just drive.”

“Where?”

“You figure it out.”

* * *

At first I assume we’re going to simply turn around—our usual trick of leaving early before even arriving somewhere we never really wanted to go to in the first place would never be so perfectly timed—but we head toward the highway. I’m not sure if Gary has a destination in mind—a plan B for the free lodging at his mother’s—or if he’s just continuing to move forward because forward is somehow easier than backward this one time.

As we slowly approach the highway, my hotel app is showing either zero local vacancies or super-high rates for a few available rooms—clearly there’s a Dartmouth home game that I failed to take into account—so now we’re really in a bind.

I text Glenn the current marital calculus: the emotional and logistical coordinates and debts owed—I owe Gary for giving his mother the wrong date: he owes me for cutting the guts out of the most sentimental object of our relationship: I owe him for insisting the People Puppets stay with us: he owes me for embracing them more than I’d planned and for bringing his weed with us on the road and almost getting us arrested: I owe him for turning our marriage into a platonic relationship and for the fact that we’re on a trip we can’t afford. Plus minus plus minus plus minus. I spare her the news about the CEO; why should she have to see Gary in an unflattering light right now? Though she was divorced once and widowed once and considers herself a failure at marriage, she is the most decisive person I know. Her response is quick and definitive: