Irene and her sisters had left Waveland, Mississippi, with the sort of reckless energy that only comes when the air is thick with heat and the sea’s salt clings to your skin. The RV, a modern beast Matthew had acquired in the years of COVID 19 zoomed assuredly as they crossed into Alabama. It was late March (the Kellys’ month of doom), the road shimmering under the midday sun, and everything felt like it might take flight.
Matthew drove with one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around a sweating bottle of Pellegrino. His arm was tanned from years of sunlight, his eyes always on the horizon, as if he was chasing something that had already slipped away. Irene, Stacy and Ann sat beside him, bare feet propped on the dashboard, theer eyes half-lidded but always awake. their laughter spilled out the open windows.
They spent two nights on the Gulf, the RV parked in Matt’s driveway and visited the beach near the water where the sand was powder white and the waves rolled soft and slow. They visited a local restaurant where shrimp was grilled over a fire, drank Rum that Matthew had traded for fixing a shrimp boat’s motor, and spoke about all the things that had turned their lives into stories worth leaving behind.
“Panama City’s next,” Matthew said that evening, his voice low and dry. The fire flickered shadows on his face, making him look older than he was.
“What’s there?” Irene asked.
“Anything we want,” he said, and it was the kind of answer that made the air feel lighter.
Day one they crossed the Alabama line at mid morning, the landscape flattening out, the trees growing sparser. The RV roared along the two-lane roads, past rusty gas stations and fields broken by the occasional trailer or roadside stand selling boiled peanuts and overripe peaches.
The nights were all the same, the sky endless and heavy, the stars scattered like salt. They camped at their planned campsites. Irene’s sisters danced barefoot around the bar-b-que, their laughter like something from another world. Matthew played an old guitar he’d picked up somewhere between Texas and here, the strings loose and the notes mournful.
Panama City hit them like a hot slap of brine. The beaches were wide and the air stank of fried fish and suntan lotion. Tourists crowded the boardwalks, and the bars throbbed with music even before the sun had fully set. But Irene and Matthew and their sisters weren’t looking for the beaches or the hotels. They wanted the edges, the places where the shine wore thin.
They drank Dark n’Stormies in the bars of national chain restaurants bars and played skittle ball with men who didn’t bother asking their names. Irene learned to drive the RV through the tangled streets, the wheel hot against her palms. Matthew taught her how to read the faces of men who had lost more than they’d ever won.
One night, stoned and sunburned, they sat by the RV watching the water shimmer under the moon.
“Where to next?” Irene asked, her voice tired but sure.
“Wherever the road goes,” Matthew said. And for once, it felt like an answer that made sense.