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. She didn t feel like she had to go running off to see the world, he said, bowing his head toexamine the tablecloth.He used his fingernail to chip at a crusted piece of ketchup left overfrom last night s dinner. Her life was here.She was happy here. It s not that I m un happy here, Peter said quietly. It s just that there are other things, otherplaces & There was a long silence, interrupted only by the dripping of the kitchen sink and the hum ofthe air-conditioning from the next room.Finally, Dad shook his head, frustrated, and stood up toleave.He tipped the contents of his coffee mug into the sink, tried twisting the faucet off again,then grabbed his sunglasses and hat from the counter.Peter watched all this with a sort ofdetached fascination, aware that something had shifted between them, an opening ofsomething that perhaps should have been left closed.Dad had a hand on the back door when he turned around once more.His eyes flicked acrossthe room, taking in the drab green curtains and the faded floor tiles, the fraying tablecloth andhis improbable son. She wasn t happy here in spite of being smart, you know, he said. She was happy herebecause of it.She was smart enough to know a good thing. Then I guess she was smarter than I am, Peter said, his voice barely audible.The wordsemerged almost before he could think to stop them, and it was obvious by the way the doorslammed that Dad had heard him loud and clear.Later that morning, when Peter pulled the blue car out to the end of the driveway, his handswere shaking.He didn t know where he was going or what he was doing, only that it felt like itwas already too late to take it back.And as he drove deeper into the state of New Yorkmoving so quickly along the well-known map routes that it almost felt like falling his mouth wasdry and chalky with the very real fear that at any moment a police car would flip on its lightsand peel out after him.He knew that if it weren t for Emma, he probably wouldn t have made it very far.It simplywasn t in his nature, this tendency toward flight, this ability to break the rules without a secondthought.No matter what he told himself, no matter how much he d like to believe he d havemade it all the way to Gettysburg, in reality, he probably would have only stopped for pizza afew towns over, wandered to the farthest corners of the county, maybe waited until it was darkout before slinking back home to accept his punishment.But then his phone had begun to ring, and the trip had suddenly changed from somethingmeandering and lonely and spiteful into something more purposeful, an unlikely adventure withEmma, a journey filled with incredible possibilities.It was no longer just an afternoon jaunt.Itwas an expedition.It was a voyage.It was unlike anything he d ever done before.All afternoon Peter tried not to imagine what Dad s reaction would be when he found out.After the first fifty miles he stuck a Post-it note over the clock on the dashboard, because all he could think about was the rapidly approaching hour when his father would arrive home fromwork to discover an empty house and a missing car.And it wasn t until five o clock came andwent, and the sky fell a shade darker, and the rest stop grew closer, and the phone in hispocket failed to ring, that Peter was struck with a new worry.That perhaps his dad had noticedthat he wasn t there, and just didn t care enough to do anything about it.But for the moment, at least, he was on his way, and he distracted himself by thinking aboutall the landmarks he d always wanted to visit, not just the battlefields which stretched up anddown the coast like a scar across the land but all the other things too: the Appalachian Trailand the Washington Monument, the Liberty Bell and the Smithsonian.In Pennsylvania alonethere was the Hershey Museum (with its unimaginable amounts of chocolate) and the NationalAviary (with its unending varieties of birds) and the town of Punxsutawney (home to the world smost famous groundhog)
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