ion rings. She hadn’t decided what she’d get, when he asked. “I think last year you just got clam chowder and blueberry pie a la mode from the previous summer’s blueberries and shared my onion rings.” He was sleeping in the front passenger seat when she took the wrong entrance. They’d had lunch a half-hour before at a restaurant right off 84 in Holland or Tolland, Connecticut, same one they always stopped at for lunch and gas. She had a hamburger and he a cup of lentil soup, and they shared a garden salad. And coffee, always coffee, and she asked for hot water for the herbal teabag she brought in. Before he closed his eyes to nap, he said “If I do conk out, wake me when you pull into the first rest stop on the Pike — it’ll be just two or three miles after you get on it — and I’ll take over and you can nap.” Once she got the ticket at the tollbooth, she said, she was confused as to which entrance to take—“The signs were unclear. They didn’t say New Hampshire and Boston one way and Springfield and Albany the other, as I remember them. Just ‘East’ and ‘West,’ and I wasn’t sure which direction I should go.” “You must have missed the other set of signs that said Springfield and Boston,” and she said “I could have. Maybe the tree branches were blocking them. That can happen up here. But by the time I realized that ‘West’ was the wrong direction, it was too late to correct it — I was boxed in by other cars and had to keep going.” “Let me see the toll ticket,” and she gave it to him and he said “Damnit; twenty-three miles to the next exit. That means forty-six miles to get back to where you made your mistake, plus getting off this road, paying the toll, getting a new ticket and getting back to going in the right direction. We’re talking about losing more than an hour,” and she said “it shouldn’t take that long. Speed limit’s sixty-five on the Pike.” “Believe me,” he said, “it’ll take, altogether, at least an hour. I wanted to get to the motel by four so I could get our stuff into the room and the cats fed and settled, and still have time to go to Kennebunkport for a run on the beach and maybe a snack. But that whole plan has been screwed up. You screwed it up. If you were so confused at the tollbooth, why didn’t you ask me which direction to take?” and she said “Because you were sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you. You seemed tired this morning, when we had to get up so early, and also at the restaurant. That’s why I was driving.” “You were driving because we were sharing the driving. What a mistake that was,” and she said “Please don’t be mean. I don’t know how you can talk to me like this, especially when I’m carrying our child.” “Oh, don’t lay that one on me. You’re pregnant with our future daughter and I’m not supposed to get angry at you for making a dumb, costly mistake,” and she said “It was a simple mistake, resulting in the loss of an hour. Big deal. Instead of a run on the beach, which you can do tomorrow morning, you can take a shorter run around Kennebunk and maybe even have time for a snack. But why would you want a snack, other than the trail mix we brought with us, if we’re going to Kennebunkport for dinner at 6:30?” and he said “I also wanted to have time to shower and have a drink in the room while I read the newspaper. Most of that’s off,” and she said “It doesn’t have to be. You just make things shorter.” He squeezed his eyes shut. She’s right, of course, he thought, but now he doesn’t have it in him to admit it and apologize. He kept his eyes shut. “You giving me the silent treatment because of my so-called dumb mistake?” “Yes,” he said “and I don’t want to talk about it. And right now that’s all there is to talk about, so I’m going to stay silent, all right? Better for both of us, considering what could come out.” She said “I’ve never seen you be so mean to me. You’ve been harsh and rude sometimes and angry, but never like this, saying things expressly to hurt me. So selfish. And so foolish. I feel like crying but I’m driving and I don’t want my tears to affect my vision. I feel now, though, that I almost wish I wasn’t carrying your baby. Three months to term. I can’t believe you could be so insensitive and destructive. Good, let’s not talk. And when I get us off this dismal road, you take over. I want to sit in back with the cats and try to sleep so I won’t have to think how awful you’ve been.” “Fine,” he said, “I’ll take over. But again, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Wake me up when you’re approaching the next exit. I don’t want you making another wrong driving move.” “Drop dead,” she said. “Go fuck yourself. You’re disgusting to me; repulsive. Did that sink in?” and he said “Yes,” put the toll ticket in the storage space in front of her and turned to his side window and shut his eyes. He thought: How stupid could you be? Even you didn’t know how much. What do you say to make things better? Because you have to say something. He faced front and, eyes still shut, said “Sleep is stupid. We’ll be at the turnaround exit in ten minutes. And look, if it helps any, you were absolutely right and I was absolutely wrong and I apologize for what I said,” and she said “It doesn’t help one bit. You’re just saying that to get out of it. Typical of you: to quickly get past the harm you’ve done and I’m supposed to get past it too. But you’re dead to me now and will be till I don’t know when. No more talk. I mean it. Just leave me alone.” They made it to the motel in plenty of time to get set up there and still go to the Kennebunkport beach for an hour. When he suggested it, she said “Last place I want to be with you,” though at lunch she said she was thinking how nice it’d be to sit by the shore there and get some late afternoon sun and maybe walk out a ways on the long breakwater they have there. Now, she said she’s going to stay in the room and read and maybe see what’s on television. He said he’ll take a short run around here and she said “What you end up doing doesn’t interest me.” “Okay, but are you hungry for something other than trail mix, or thirsty? I can get you a juice and snack while I’m out, or make you tea here — there’s a coffeemaker, so I can heat up water in it for you,” and she went into the bathroom with a book and locked the door. He drove to Kennebunkport, thought of getting her a lobster roll, which she loved, but knew she’d refuse it; ran barefoot on the beach a little, walked out about twenty feet on the breakwater, then thought he didn’t feel like doing anything when she was so hurt and mad at him, and drove back to the motel. She didn’t want to have dinner but he convinced her to—“For the baby,” and she said “Yeah, a lot you showed you care.” At the restaurant the only words she said to him were “No,” when he said “Do you want a couple of my scallops? They’re the best I’ve ever had and they gave me plenty,” and “No” again, when he asked her if she wanted dessert; “Let’s just go.” That night she wouldn’t let him hold her in bed from behind. “Please, Martin, don’t touch me. And try to sleep as far away from me as you can. I appreciate, though, that you replaced their sheets with our cotton ones,” and he said “Anything for you,” but she didn’t say anything after that. Next morning she dressed in the bathroom with the door closed and didn’t want to go for breakfast. “I’m just not hungry.” “You got to eat,” and she said “I will later on at the rest stop. You go, if you want, but don’t bring me back anything.” “Boy, are you making me pay for my mistake,” and she said “You deserve worse, believe me, if I only knew how to be as mean as you.” She ordered a hamburger at a clam shack along the way. “Sure you don’t want a lobster roll? It’ll be your first of the summer,” and she shook her head. He had a crab roll, and a fishburger for later, since he’d skipped breakfast too. “You know,” he said, when they were sitting at a picnic table eating, “we didn’t call the Green Heron to cancel our reservation,” and she said “Interesting how concerned you are about others.” “I’m concerned about you,” and she pretended she didn’t hear him. He drove the entire way from Kennebunk to the cottage they rented every summer in Brooklin. She sat in the back seat, her head on a bed pillow, mostly sleeping or looking like she was. She let him hold her from behind two nights after they got there, but said, when he started stroking her breasts, that she wasn’t ready yet to let him make love to her and didn’t know when she would be. “Sometime, of course, but not now for sure.” They walked along the road to the point the next morning. He grabbed her hand and held it as they walked. “Did I ever tell you there used to be a sardine canning factory on the point?” and he said “No, you never did. Before you first started renting the cottage?” and she said “Long before.” He picked a wildflower and said “Do you know what this is called?” and she said “There’s a Maine wildflower book at the cottage, if you want to identify it.” “I do. I’m going to look it up and all the others I find that I don’t know. That’ll be my non-writing project this summer,” and tucked the flower carefully into his back pants pocket. “Maybe you should take two or three of them, in case the one you have falls apart in your pocket.” “Good idea.” Then he said “Will you let me kiss you? A little or big kiss?” and she said “Whichever you want. I’m okay with you now but will never forget what you did. Did you ever figure out why you acted to me like that?” and he said “No. Or I must have been temporarily crazy. But that doesn’t answer it and is too facile an excuse. I guess I was too intent on getting to the motel in time because I wanted to take advantage of the beach. No, none of that explains it. Can’t a person, for no fathomable reason, lose his head like that once?” “What frightens me is that it might not have been an isolated incident. But let’s not get into an argument over it. That’s all we need.” “My kiss?…you said you were willing,” and she let him — he thought it best to make it a quick light one — and he took her hand again and they continued their walk.