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that seemed to transform her entire face from the rigid woman I knew into someone as inviting as a hot cup of tea. Suddenly, I felt like part of the team again, not just the driver. “Thank you, Hilary,” my mother said, then before I realized what she was doing, she had leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
    Okay, maybe miracles could happen. Or maybe my mother really was slipping into early dementia.

five
    The cops saved us from all of the above. They found the car a couple hours later, abandoned on the side of the road, Reginald, my father and luggage intact. The ignition had been jimmied with a screwdriver, which meant a few hours’ delay in a shop to get it rekeyed, but other than that, the Mustang appeared undamaged.
    I wanted to kiss it, but figured that would look weird, so I settled for patting the hood instead.
    My mother’s relief, however, was no-holds-barred. She nearly ran to the car, embracing Reginald with the kind of fervor most people reserved for missing children. A weird little surge of jealousy rose in my chest. I couldn’t remember her ever grabbing me like that after preschool or kindergarten.
    But then again, I’d never been stolen out of a travel plaza by a guy with a bandana and a screwdriver, either.
    “You’re lucky,” the repair guy said to me. “Most of the time people never see stolen vehicles again, or if they do, they’re torched and abandoned. Your thief must have felt guilty about the pig.”
    “Yeah, leave it to Reginald to save the day.” I hated having to owe the pig, of all things, for rescuing the car I’d scrimped for years to buy.
    My mother was so happy, she was humming. As much as I hated to admit it, I’d made the right choice in deciding to stay instead of insisting we go back home. If I’d forced her to go back to Massachusetts, instead of remaining behind to find the pig, I’d have caused an irreparable rift between us.
    We had enough cracks in our relationship already.
    A little while later, we were back on the road, though we didn’t get far before night fell and we started looking for a pet-friendly motel. I had to call Nick, who used Google to find a place for us, and made a quick reservation. I wasn’t in the mood to argue with some desk clerk about whether a potbellied pig qualified as a pet or not, and was glad to leave that in Nick’s hands. “You owe me,” he said when he called me back with the confirmation number.
    My heart softened when I heard his voice, and the extra mile he’d gone to, for a pig he didn’t like, and a woman who’d just turned down his marriage proposal. I missed him already, and again found myself wishing I could crawl through the phone line and be back in his bed, his arms, my face against the end-of-day stubble on his cheek, inhaling the scent of wood on his skin. Instead I joked, because it was easier than saying all the things that bubbled in my heart. “I’d say this makes us even. I took you out for Chinese last week, remember?”
    “I want more than take-out.” Unanswered questions from the morning hung in the air between us. Nick had a way of doing that, of layering heavy meanings into simple statements. Hemingway would have loved him.
    I sighed. “Like what?”
    “Home-cooked meals. Maybe a kid at the table. Things to come home to, Hil, instead of everything being disposable.”
    “Then buy some dishes, Nick, instead of Dixie plates.” I knew what he was talking about, but I couldn’t go down that conversational path. Me, with a child? I could barely care for myself. How could he even envision us with kids?
    And where was this coming from? Was he hormonal?
    Could men even get hormonal?
    “I’m tired of everything being disposable, Hil. Aren’t you?” Then he clicked off.
    My mother flicked off the penlight she’d been using to read the map. “What was that about?”
    “Nothing.”
    “You don’t want to tell me?”
    I tossed the cell into my purse, then turned on my directional for the upcoming