Darla and Fitz: Part One

If she left Hastings by noon, she could get to the Mackinac Bridge by six, cross over to the U.P. and be at her campsite by eight. But first, she had to get the RV key off John’s thick metal key ring holding all their keys – car, truck, house, cabin, RV. He stood waiting with his hands in his jeans pockets. A skinny guy, wiry, he wore the same size pants as when she met him thirty years ago. Nothing changed about him – not his jeans or his boots or his Willie Nelson t-shirt – except now he was single or about to be.            

“Darla. Jesus, gimme that. I’ll get it off for you.” John was impatient, eager to get this part of the process over with. He reached a tattooed arm over to take the bunch of keys out of her hands but she turned away.

“I can get the damn key off the ring. If I’m gonna drive the RV across the country, I need to start with managing the key.” John smiled, dug his hands deeper in his pockets. He was still her good old boy, a sweet guy, helpful, considerate, endearing with his bashfulness. Nothing about their splitting up had been bitter or angry, just profoundly, deeply, unfathomably sad. They’d been together since they were juniors at Michigan State, married for twenty-eight years, about as long as his new girlfriend had been alive.            

“There, I got it. So, I’ll be going now. Any last words of advice?” In her head, Darla heard him ask her to stay, she heard the words, ‘I was wrong. She’s nothing. Please don’t go.’            

“Nope. You know all the ins and outs. You could drive to Oregon blindfolded. Just kidding. Don’t do that. Just be sure to lock up at night and don’t let the black water tank get too full before you dump it.” He patted her on the back when he said these things like she was his teenage son about to take the family car out for the first time. What happened to them? When did everything go dead?            

Darla hoisted herself up into the driver’s seat and pulled the RV door shut. She turned the ignition and rolled down the window.            

“I hope your life is good, John. I want that for you.”            

“I know you do, Darla. That’s how you’ve always been. I appreciate it. You take care, now.”

He gave the RV door two hard pats. “Safe travels, Darla. Safe travels.”            

She nodded and pressed the accelerator, inching her way down their long driveway, careful of the low hanging branches from the red maples they’d planted ten years ago. The idea was to line the driveway, create a canopy leading to their haven. Darla glanced at the sideview mirror – there he was, standing at their front door, still with his hands in his pockets. That look on his face. The relief. The leaving was over.            

She knew the route. Old Grand River out of Hastings to Grand Ledge and then 27 north all the way to Grayling and then I-75 to the Big Mac, across and then she’d hit U.S. 2, the road that would take her all across the northern U.S. They’d done this trip together a dozen times, just not the part about going cross-country. Darla knew how to drive the RV, but she was usually in the passenger seat. The RV was big – 32 feet – and required a lot of concentration, especially in heavy freeway traffic, so she never minded that John wanted to drive.

Today, though, she was in the driver’s seat with all the mirrors adjusted just so and the radio tuned to classical music. She couldn’t take another breath of Willie Nelson in the air.             Her cellphone rang. Incoming call said the screen on the dash. Fitzgerald. She answered.            

“Hey Fitz, how’s it going?”

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Photo by Arun Prakash on Unsplash