My dad finished filling up the RV with gas. Behind me, I heard the nozzle click back into place and his driver’s side door open. Ahead of me, the highway expanded endlessly, disappearing and resurfacing through sunlit layers of dust.
I was stretching my legs and breathing in the warm, dry air. On the curb of the gas station store, an old woman sat with an empty ICEE cup and a cardboard sign laid facedown in her lap. When I’d first noticed her, I’d been afraid she’d come up to us; my dad never gives money to homeless people because they’ll just waste it on drugs. As I stepped up into the passenger seat, I watched her sit there, her eyes staring at nothing, and I was grateful.
We’d been driving for six hours since leaving Fort Worth and had at least another three to Albuquerque. Once the radio crapped out, we’d made our way through several of his CDs, and then silence. This time, as we pulled out of the gas station, I said, “This is my first time in New Mexico.”
Obviously he know that already. But it was the only thing I could think to say.
“I’m a failure,” he said.
I turned around. He was looking straight ahead, no emotion clear on his face. The sun pouring in through his window alit on his bald spot.
The roar of the highway beneath us filled the RV with static. I must have imagined what he said, I thought to myself, and turned my gaze back out the window.
“I failed you, not taking you to New Mexico sooner,” my dad said. “It’s some of the best hiking in the United States. People overlook it, but people are idiots.”
Oh. “Well, you’re taking me now.”
He pursed his lips. “Yeah.”
In the distance, low, blue shadows emerged along the horizon. The mountains seemed impossibly far away even as we hurtled down I-40, our suitcases rattling in the back of the car.
I was surprised by how much New Mexico looked just like how I’d imagined it: lots of desert and adobe houses. As we drove deeper into the state, hills started to rise along the highway, huge, thorny burps in the land. We stopped only for dinner in Albuquerque and then kept driving to our campsite outside the city. Thick ropes of chiles hung down from every doorway we passed.
My dad had planned several day’s worth of hikes for my 16th birthday, which actually wasn’t until after we got back to Texas. Including driving, our trip lasted the full week of my spring break. I was nervous about what we would talk about during all that time. I mean, we would be spending basically every moment together: driving, hiking, and sleeping, on bunk beds inside the RV.
But, actually, there wasn’t much to report from those days. We spend two nights parked at the campsite outside Albuquerque, one a little further west, and then our last two nights closer to Santa Fe. Neither of us are morning people, but we mostly woke up with the sun, plus we’d be so tired from days of hiking that we’d crash only an hour or two after sunset. I had promised Mom that I’d call every night, but I only managed to on our first night, while my dad was outside the RV cooking us beans and sausage. The other nights, I just went to sleep.
After our first hike, my legs were so wobbly that I could hardly walk between the camping stove and the car. Within a couple of days, though, I started to find the challenge energizing. I could tell that my dad liked it, too. Apparently, when he’d met Mom he’d been an avid rock climber -- I found a stack of pictures buried deep in a drawer in her living room once, and he was really muscular, although of course he doesn’t look like that now.
When we were hiking, it was like some internal peace of his was restored. We talked about his stories of old hikes he’d done, or about which mountain ranges are the most dangerous, or about how I should best tie the laces on the new hiking shoes Mom bought me. But mostly, I would focus on the trail and on my muscles and it seemed like we both just forgot about talking. He led the way, I stayed close behind, and the sun lit up brilliant bands of color in the landscape.
On our way to our final campsite by Santa Fe, we stopped again to fill up on gas and replenish our snack supplies. When we walked into the store we split up immediately, me going to the chips aisle and my dad to the counter.
When I found my dad again at the counter, he was holding a paper map and a bag of sour cream and onion chips. I walked up to his side and help up my own bag for him to see. “Sour cream and onion,” he said, a smile spreading across his face. “Atta girl.”
He proudly pushed the three items toward the cashier and fished out his card. “Sorry, sir,” the cashier interrupted him. “I can only accept cash right now.”
I looked at the card reader, which sure enough had a sticky note tacked to it that read OUT OF ORDER!!!! My dad paused with his hand hovering above his wallet. “Are you serious?”
He unfroze to bang his fist on the counter. “Are you fucking serious?” I watched the cashier open his mouth, his eyes glazed over with boredom, but I stopped him by saying, “I have cash, Dad.”
I never leave my wallet in the car because Mom says it’s too dangerous and won’t let me. Now I pulled it out and handed him $20 from the $200 she’d given me. “Where did you get that?” my dad asked, his eyes on the wad of cash still in my wallet.
“Mom gave it to me in case of emergencies,” I said. He held the bill up to his face.
“Emergencies, huh,” he said softly. “She thinks we’ll have emergencies.”
He stared for a moment at the bill. Then he seemed to come back to life and turned to me with a big smile. “Go pick out something else for yourself.”
So I went around the store some more until I came back with sour gummy worms, Fritos, and some extra chocolatey granola bars that we could eat on the trail. Dad, meanwhile, had added a case of beer and was in the process of scooping several fridge magnets off a display.
The cashier scanned everything as we added it. “$33.90,” he said without looking up from his screen. I handed my dad another $20.
We walked to the RV cradling our loot. My dad climbed into the back to stow the beer, which I had to help make room for. That was actually my biggest complaint since we’d left Texas, though I never said it out loud: my dad had seriously overpacked. I had to keep my small suitcase and backpack directly beside the bunk bed ladder so that they wouldn’t drift away into the sea of duffels, boxes, and random appliances that covered the counters, shelves, and much of the floor.
With the beer nestled in between a plastic bag of clothes and an unplugged fan, both now slick with condensation, we set off. At a light, as we waited to turn away from the highway, an old man walked down the left turn lane, peering into windows with a hopeful smile. My dad rolled down his window and waved his hand in the air. The old man shuffled over, his smile breaking into a grin when he saw the gas station change in my dad’s fist. The light turned green just as the man caught the last dull coin in his cup, and he shouted after us, “God bless! God bless you!” as we disappeared into the damp darkness of the underpass.
“All this to the north is great hiking grounds.” My dad circled the shaded green patch of the map with his Sharpie. “The mountains are so high that they snow over all winter. My college friends and I used to go ski around Taos because we were too poor for Colorado.”
He smiled at the memory and added more black blotches to the map. “Of course, nothing beats Colorado hiking. And they don’t get too much tourism once ski season is over. Actually, right now is the perfect time. It was a good idea you had, being born in the spring,” he said, and elbowed me mischievously.
I laughed. “I’m sure my teachers won’t mind if I take an extra-long spring break.”
My dad grinned and tucked the map back into his pocket. “Tell your mom to send me the school’s number and I’ll call them.”
He stood from the rock where we’d been resting. Gazing out over the forested mountainside, the crisp air billowing beneath his workout shirt, he looked like he belonged in a painting. He tossed his orange peel on the ground and beckoned for me to follow him on our last stretch to the summit.
No sooner had I stood than I heard the desperate scramble of pebbles ahead. “Careful!” I called out without thinking, but it was too late: my dad was on his side on the ground, his hands braced against the gravel trail.
“I’m fine,” he was already saying, waving one hand dismissively in the air as he tried to push himself up with the other. But he winced and lost his balance, falling further down to his elbow. I rushed forward to help him, supporting one arm until he could get himself enough leverage to stand.
“I’m fine,” he said again, quickly brushed the gravel from his psalm, and kept walking. I stayed behind him as usual, except this time I could hear him swearing under his breath. The hairs on his legs curled together with sweat.
“Are you okay?” I finally asked.
“Fuck!” He turned and kicked a tree beside the trail. Its branches shook violently, and a bird squawked and fled from the leaves. My dad recoiled in pain, clutching his foot.
“We can turn back if you want,” I said so quietly that I wasn’t even sure I’d spoken aloud.
“Oh, I’m an ogre,” he groaned. “I’m worthless.”
I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “No you’re not, Dad,” I tried. “You’ve been walking a lot. You’re probably just tired. And you’re, like, in your fifties.”
He turned to me, still hunched over his foot, with a look in his eyes that I can only describe as hatred. “I’m not an invalid.”
The tree he’d kicked stood still once again, as if nothing had ever happened. Him and I stood still, too. Then without a word he passed me and started walking down the mountain.
Our descent was slow work. When he’d fallen the sun had been high above us; by the time we got back to the campgrounds the sky was beginning to turn pink. I took tiny steps so that I still stayed behind him, but when I stopped to use the bathroom at the visitor’s center, I came out to find him gone. When I finally figured out how to get back to our RV, he was already there, drinking a beer and cooking beans and sausage.
I went inside the RV. On top of his bed was scattered the contents of his pockets and backpack. I cleared myself a little space to sit and unfolded the map. There were his circles and dots all over the parks of New Mexico -- but there were new ones, too, that he must have drawn while I was in the bathroom. A thick black line snaked along the highway out of Santa Fe, through Taos, branched off a few places in Colorado, and then continued into Wyoming and up past the end of the map onto the margins of the paper.
I turned the paper over. The line continued onto the blank side, which was no longer blank: my dad had drawn loops and zigzags that derailed in the center of the page into a huge, angry scribble. When I touched the paper, it was damp with ink. In one corner, he’d written in cramped, bleeding letters: freedom.
From outside I heard him call me for dinner. For a moment longer I stared into the swirling black vortex in front of me. Then I folded the map back up and left the rv. We ate dinner in silence until I said, hoping my words didn’t sound as rehearsed as they were, “I can’t believe the hikes are over already.”
My dad scraped his fork across his aluminum plate but said nothing. I continued. “I was thinking, maybe we could see Santa Fe a little bit before we go. Like, we could eat breakfast there or something. I’ve heard it’s a cool city.”
“It is a cool city,” he admitted, but then he changed the topic. “Hey, how do you like that bunk bed in there?”
I glanced back at the RV. “Um, it’s fine.”
“Good. You know, it’s hard to find two-bed compact RVs. I had to go to three different dealerships. Woulda saved me some good money if I’d just gotten a single.”
He stood and took my empty plate. When I looked up at him, he was looking at me, too, and wearing a big smile that seemed to me mismatched on his face. I wasn’t sure if he was smiling because that was how he felt, or if it was a suggestion of how I should feel. To play it safe, I smiled back.
In the morning we drove to a cafe in Santa Fe that I had looked up that night instead of sleeping. Thankfully, my dad didn’t question my choice. He seemed high-energy -- he kept tapping on the steering wheel as we drove into town -- but he kept swerving a lot, too. When we reached Santa Fe rush hour traffic he almost merged into another car. “God damn it,” he hissed as the driver honked at us. “I still haven’t figured out how to drive this thing.”
We parked in the strip mall where the cafe I’d picked out was located. As we walked inside, I spoke excitedly about Santa Fe. “I heard there’s a bunch of art museums here. It’s too bad we have to drive home today.”
He looked up from the menu in his hands. “If you want to spend more time here… we can do that. It’s your birthday.”
We ordered and sat. My dad tapped his fingers on the table. He was speaking quickly. “The weather’s way better here than in Fort Worth. Plus my A/C costs are so low in the RV. If we get hot we can just open the windows. See, your mom doesn’t understand that I made an investment.”
I nodded. “Speaking of, I’m actually really cold in here. I’m gonna go grab my jacket. Can you unlock the car?”
He clicked the key fob without leaving his seat. The door jingled behind me as I left and stepped into the back of the RV. Out of his sight, I waded through the stacks of boxes and beer cans to grab my jacket, suitcase, and backpack. Then I left the RV and walked away from the cafe.
My mouth was dry and sour as I dragged my suitcase through the parking lot. Its wheels clawed at cracks and gravel. On the other side of the intersection ahead, sunlight beat down upon the pockmarked walls of the Greyhound station.
I crossed at the light, swallowed bile, and walked in. With a portion of my remaining $160 I bought a ticket for the 10:30 AM bus to El Paso, which I knew from the research I’d done last night would connect me to 6:00 PM to Fort Worth. The woman behind the ticket counter looked at me strangely. “Are you tired, baby?” she said, leaning in close. “Go have a seat.”
I sat and hugged my backpack to my chest. The bus station was nearly empty; in the corner opposite me a man was watching something on a tablet with who I assumed was his small daughter. “Blue,” he repeated after the video. “Boo,” she said.
Mom picked up the phone after two rings. “Hi,” I said softly into my earbuds. “I know. I’m really sorry I haven’t called. We were super busy. … No, no, everything’s fine.”
I stared out at the parking lot. “It was super fun.”
A shiny new RV pulled into the parking lot. Out of the driver’s side door my climbed out, holding his coffee and the pastries we’d ordered together. “No, he’s in the bathroom right now. We’re about to get on the road.”
My dad limped up to the front door of the station and I braced for it to open, for how loud he’d yell, for the nice lady behind the counter to try and intervene. But he didn’t open the door. He stood in front of the window and cupped one hand around his eyes, scanning the waiting room until he found me.
“By the way, we might be a little late, Mom,” I said, my voice trembling. “Not sure yet, but we talked about maybe seeing some stuff in El Paso. So I might not be back by tonight.”
He didn’t shout or bang on the window or anything. But he knew that I saw him, too, because I couldn’t look away from him.
“I know I have school, Mom.” He was mouthing something at me. “I’ll try to get back soon. I’m sorry.” I need you.
He let his hand drop from his eyes. Looking into my eyes, he sighed, and then he slowly shook his head in disappointment. I pressed my mouth into my backpack to keep from crying. Across the room, the little girl said, “Geen!”
“I… what’d you say?” My dad turned away from the window. On his way back to the RV he tossed my muffin on the ground. It rolled a few inches and then was still. “Oh. Um, he seems good.” The RV pulled out of the parking lot and back to the street, where I knew it would continue on to the highway, and then off to Taos, to Colorado, to freedom. “Yeah. He’s doing good.”