Tomorrow, we go on a Treasure Hunt.

CHAPTER TWO

Ellie and Eddie pull up in the RV at 8:37 a.m. Three minutes later, my bags are loaded up and I’m ready to go.

“Somebody’s excited,” Eddie says, grinning.

“Heck yes,” I say, and we high-five. I know he’s just as excited. One of our stops along the way is in Houston, where their daughter, Darcy, is going to college. It’s one of the things that got the idea for this trip started, and we’re all excited to see her again.

This trip developed slowly, like an emerging photograph in a darkroom, and it’s finally about to be displayed in full color.

“Okay, guys,” Ellie says. “I have researched basically every best food stop between here and California, so get ready to eat!”

Ellie and Mom talk together for a minute, quietly. They’ve known each other so long that they share mannerisms, like the way they talk with their hands. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but Mom says something with a worried face and Ellie puts a hand on her shoulder. Ellie’s good at that, knowing what other people need. She’s the one who’s always got extra hair ties, Neosporin, or hand sanitizer in her purse. And she introduced Ruth to the album Love at First Sting by the Scorpions.

I run my hand along a painted stripe on the side of the RV and give it a soft pat.

“Isn’t she gorgeous?” Eddie says, coming up behind me. He looks up at the RV like it’s a majestic elephant at the zoo. He’s always looking at things and talking about things like they’re utterly wonderful, and it makes it easier for me to look at them that way too. Like I have permission to see things effervescently. He’s the one I picked when I needed to interview someone outside my immediate family for a school project.

“Most spectacular thing I’ve seen today,” I say.

This giant RV is our home for the next little while. Our home away from home until we reach the Pacific Ocean. All the way to relaxing on the beach, scuba diving at pirate ships, and digging up old, happy memories.

The digging-up part is just me and Ruth. A little bit like it used to be.

I sense something hiding under the waves of this trip, like the treasure itself. It’s a trip on roads and through towns and cities, yes, but it’s also a trip through those memories. Through who we were, which means who we still are, and who we can still be. The move years ago had been exciting for us, for the most part. I’d had a few friends I was going to miss, and leaving our house was scary, but new adventures were exciting, weren’t they? Plus I’d still have Ruth, and that’s what mattered. She’d started having a few dark moments before the move, but she told me she was excited about it too, that maybe after a move things would be better. We had so much fun doing the Treasure Hunt across the country I thought things were getting really good again. It wasn’t until after the move that she started feeling … far away.