The Camping Trip - Episode 5
He started to stand in the canoe, I
was a worried it would tip. However, it only gave a slight sway as he moved
towards me. “I need you to walk towards me very slowly, Amber.” He hissed
softly as he held out his hand.
“I ain’t getting in that thing!
You’ve gotta be joking, right?!” My arms crossed my chest in an automatic
defensive move, my feet planted firmly on the ground, hips wide.
Before I knew quite what was
happening, he took a flying leap from the boat. The effect of which was to push
me to my knees off to one side before he hit the ground with a sickening thud.
“Shoo, go on get!” He screamed, pounding on the dirt.
I turned my head and saw him
crawling towards the bushes. What in the world was he doing? It was about at
that point I spotted the black and white fur. Yikes, had we found Pepe Le Pew?
Oh no, oh no, oh no! “Mark stop, you’ll make him mad. Remember all those jokes
in the cartoon about how bad a skunk smells?” I half whispered.
Yeah, I was a half-second too late.
The odor started to hit my nose as the words were leaving my lips. Mark flew up
and jumped in the lake like he was on fire. Meanwhile, I was doing a slow creep
in the opposite direction. From the corner of my eye, I could see a life-vest
go flying, then a t-shirt and finally a pair of jeans. Yet, this wasn’t the
time to be questioning the judgement of my husband turning into a stripper.
Nope, now was the time to be getting away from this little corner of the lake.
Far, far away.
After a few minutes, or ten, I’m
not really sure, I felt I was far enough it was safe to stand. I made my way a
bit closer to the hiking trail I’d been on for most of the day. Ugh, it wasn’t
far enough. The scent was still strong enough I wanted to throw up. I
leaned over, my hands on my thighs for support. Trying to take slow breaths to
calm my stomach and my nerves.
“Hey, sweetie, keep walking. I’m
going to stay in the water towing the canoe. We need to move away from here.”
He called from the lake. His chest shimmering from the sun dancing on the drops
as he continued to splash water on himself. It hit me why I was so attracted to
him. And it wasn’t his good looks.
“Sounds like a plan.” I replied,
smiling to myself at how lucky I was to have someone who wanted to protect me.
Didn’t matter if he was limper than a noodle and had just been defeated by a
skunk.
We walked in silence for a while, the
trail dipped into the forest on occasion but for the most part was rather close
to the shore. We were together, but apart as he stayed knee deep in the water.
And it was rather clear, his quick bath hadn’t gotten the stench off of him. I
didn’t know what we were going to do about that.
“Amber, I don’t know why you
thought this was going to be a cool thing to do…” He looked over at me.
“Oh, please, don’t start. I don’t
know why you didn’t rent the RV like I asked. Or pick me up. Or anything else.
This was supposed to be romantic like what Sally and Greg did.” I bit my lip, I
didn’t want to start crying. Not now, not after all that had happened. Not now,
when I was starting to want him again.
“Uhm, oh.” He stopped dead in his
tracks, turning to look at me fully.
“You never read my texts, did you?”
Anger washed over me. How could I marry a man who never wanted to hear anything
I had to say? Then pain. Why was marriage lonelier than being single? Then
hope. He’s standing there looking at me, does he understand what he did?
“Oh man. There were so many…” He
dropped his head. “I want to kiss you right now and make this all better but
that won’t cut it will it?”
“I do believe this is bigger than
that.” I shot back.
He began to slog through the water
again. I stood for a second more watching the ripples he was leaving in his
wake. Realizing I had no other option, I began to follow him towards the
campground once more.
The quiet settled on us, neither of
us knowing what to do next other than to keep on moving. Once the dock was in
sight, Mark stopped again. “I know what to do.” He took a breath so deep it
seemed to come from his toes. “You stay here tonight. I’m going back home. I’ll
ask my brother to pack up everything in our apartment and put it in Mom’s
basement. I’ll trade my car for an RV somehow. We’ll just take off, wander the
country until the world returns to normal. Have those romantic moments you want.
Do odd jobs if we need some cash. And most importantly, I’ll learn how to
listen. Well, I’ll try to.”
I gazed over at him. Really stopped
to look at this person I was married to. Did I want to give up everything for
him? Who was I kidding? Right at this moment, I didn’t have much. A crummy job,
a bad apartment and a freezer full of chocolate ice cream. Oh, and that giant
stack of bills. “We need to find a way to clean you up first. Nobody is gonna
want your car if there’s ode de skunk wafting about.” Yup, no arguments from
me. We were either going to fix our marriage or we were going to kill each
other. After all, I’d said ‘Till death do us part’ as part of my vows.
An hour or so later he was on the
road, after the nice ‘host’ fellow helped him remove of most of the stink. And
after we’d had one of the most passionate kisses we’d ever had. As I sat by the
fire, watching the flames flicker and the clouds building in the sky, this felt
right somehow. The soft glow around me was simple, sweet, good. Until the
heavens opened and it started to rain buckets. Fearing the tent wouldn’t be
safe, I made a dash for the car.
My phone pinged. ‘Matts on board –
landlord not happy but we good’ Happy face emoji.
A while later another text came in.
‘Got a great trade for a camper van’ Heart emoji.
My heart sank, we were really doing
this. Oh my goodness, what were we getting into. Still as a stone, I sat and
stared at the river washing down the windshield. Wiping away everything that’d
ever been there before.
And a song popped into my head ‘I’m
thinking ‘bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways, and maybe it’s all
part of a plan. Well, I’ll just keep on making the same mistakes, hoping that
you’ll understand. That, baby, now take me into your loving arms, kiss me under
the light of a thousand stars...’
Tomorrow was going to be the start
of a perfect day, no, a perfect life.
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