We enter a charming little town with old-fashioned storefronts lining the main street. I debate how much I want to say as we approach what appears to be the lone stop sign in this village.
Two days ago, it would’ve been absolutely nothing.
I wouldn’t have wanted to tell Daphne a single word about my plans.
But now—she’d get it.
She’d get it more than Archie could get it.
She’s lived it.
She’s thriving in it.
“Stop stopstop!” she screeches.
I slam on the brakes, sending both of us thrusting forward into our seat belts about three car lengths from the stop sign.
My heart hammers in my throat.
Two people outside a diner to our left openly gawk at me.
Someone behind me honks.
“Oh my god, pull over! We have to go in.” She tugs on my arm and points to something on the right.
I ease off the brake and let the car roll into one of the angled parking spots lining the road in front of an old brick building with giant metal flowers and an ancient wooden rocking chair sitting in front of the large glass picture windows.
“What are we stopping for?” I almost get the sentence out without gasping for air.
Daphne unbuckles her seat belt and flings the door open. “I can’t believe I almost didn’t see it!”
She’s squealing like we’re about to find the holy grail.
Actually, she wouldn’t squeal about that.
She’d squeal about?—
“Look, Oliver! Just look. Isn’t she beautiful?”
A brass statue of a polar bear on an iceberg.
She’d squeal about a brass bear in an antique shop off a rural highway somewhere in northern Mississippi.
Her brown eyes sparkle up at me. The blue and green highlights in her hair shimmer in the summer sunlight. And pure joy radiates off her.
Joy over a nine-inch statue in an antique shop.
“Every road trip needs a mascot,” she says.
I get it now.
I get why Margot used to say Daphne wasn’t the troublemaker everyone thought she was.
She simply had her own way of looking at life that didn’t line up with what was expected. Her own ways of finding joy that came from different places than where the rest of us looked for it.
I don’t know exactly what I’m feeling right now.
Jealousy at how much she’s clearly thrived in her life.
