"Thanks again." Heyden said.
The owner looked at us one more time and then stepped out and closed the door.
Heyden turned to me.
"We've got it," he said, his eyes as bright and joyful as Christmas lights. "We're off. Uncle Linden," he said.
"What? Oh. Good. good," Uncle Linden said and got out of the driver's seat.
Heyden got into it. studied the dashboard a moment, and then started the engine. I thought it made a lot of noise. but he didn't seem to notice.
"Fasten your seatbelts!" he cried, then shifted and started out of the driveway. I had to admit he looked as if he had been driving motor homes far years. Seconds later we were moving down the street.
"I'm going to get us to the 95." he said. "We'll go for a while and then pull off and find a department store."
"Good plan." Uncle Linden said. He had taken the seat beside him.
I found I was holding my breath on and off. I actually felt a little numb.
We were doing it. We were actually leaving. Heyden started to hum what had become our theme song, Leaving on a Motor Home.
Surely this was a wonderful idea. I told myself. Look how happy Uncle Linden appears to be, looking out his window, watching the scenery pass, saying goodbye to the only world he has ever known, but a world that never wanted or welcomed him. He wasn't going off to start a new life the way we were exactly. He was escaping. And then I thought Heyden and I hadn't been living in a residency, but all three of us felt the same way.
We were all escaping.
.
It soon felt like a prolonged picnic, an outing
that didn't end. About an hour and a half into the ride. Heyden decided it was time to pull off and get our shopping done. He took the first exit, and ten minutes later we pulled into the parking lot for a sprawling mall.
"What's first?" he asked.
"Let's get what we need for the house," I said.
"Yes, our house," Uncle Linden seconded,
Heyden drove toward the department store, and we got out of the motor home.
"She does drive well," he said, gesturing back at it as we walked toward the entrance of the department store, "I guess he wasn't lying to us." "I think you would have rented an old horse and buggy if you had to. Heyden.'
"Probably," he admitted. laughing.
We went into the store and immediately began to behave like two people who had just arrived from a third-world country. Even Uncle Linden joined in on our childlike excitement, pouncing on the basic clothes and things he needed. After I filled our cart with what I considered the necessities-- sheets, pillows, pillow-cases and blankets, towels and washcloths-- we bought decorative pictures in gilded frames, a clock, two area rugs, and, at Uncle Linden's insistence, a small television set and a DVD player. "I've been asking for one of these back at the home. but Mrs. Robinson insisted it wasn't necessary. The other residents fall asleep watching television. What difference did it make how good the picture was?"
"Now you have it. Uncle Linden," Heyden told him.
"Yes. Now I have it."
I had to get another cart for our kitchen supplies, dishes, silverware, some pots and pans and paper goods. Our bill at the register was over three thousand dollars. Uncle Linden didn't hesitate to pay for it. "We're cutting deeply into our bankroll," I warned Heyden.
"Don't worry about money. We're going to get work sooner than you can imagine," he assured me. How I wished I had his confidence and optimism about everything. Was it because he came from so much darker a place than I did that he had so much sunlight in his eyes now? Where my steps and motions were tentative and cautious, his were quick and reckless. Buy this, do that, don't worry about tomorrow. How did he get such a warranty on the future? I wondered, and hoped that whatever left him with such sanguinity would infect me the same way soon.
Moving on to the supermarket, we truly behaved like people just let out of the loony bin. Uncle Linden lunged for cookies and cereals he hadn't had in ages. I tried to buy as sensibly as I could to keep our bill low, but between him and Heyden, both acting like children in a candy store, piling
confections and ice cream into the cart, as well as cases of soda. I soon gave up. This bill reached over four hundred dollars.
We were so foolish, too, because our small refrigerator couldn't hold all the things that had to be kept frozen. We ended up having to eat a half dozen ice-cream pops. I chastised them both, but they only laughed and cried, "Pass me another before it melts!" I went about organizing the bedrooms and the foods in our small cabinets. Three hours later we took exit 84 and pulled off the highway and parked in what was considered a scenic place. From where we were, we could see Canaveral and one of the space shuttle launch pads.