rather, she wrote down the distances between them, because the names on the map were small and her eyes were tired, and Sarah, on the phone, looked up the same route on her own map and read out the distances, and the three of them compared numbers until they agreed. "Eighty miles the first day," Grace said. "That is enough. You do not have to prove anything." Evelyn nodded. "Eighty miles," she said. "And a stop every forty, for fuel and for coffee and for stretching." Sarah said, "And a proper night's sleep. No riding after dark." Evelyn said, "No riding after dark. I promise." She meant it. The promise was not a restriction. It was a way of making the trip last, of giving it room to breathe.
They talked about the bike. Evelyn said the Heritage would need a service before a long trip, and Grace wrote "Pete" in the notebook and underlined it twice. "Pete will check the tyres and the brakes and the oil," Grace said, "and he will tell you the truth about what needs doing, and he will not charge you for the telling." Evelyn nodded. "He will," she said. "And Ray will ride the first day with me, as far as the hills, and then he will turn back, and I will ride the rest alone, or with whoever comes." Sarah was quiet again, and Evelyn knew what she was thinking, and she answered the thought before Sarah had to say it. "I will call every evening," Evelyn said. "Every evening, from the motel, and I will tell you where I am, and I will tell you the bike is fine, and I will tell you what I had for supper." Sarah's voice softened. "That is all I ask," she said. "That, and that you take the phone charger, and the rain jacket, and the spare gloves." Evelyn laughed. "I will take all three," she said. "And the map. The paper map. Not just the phone." Grace nodded approvingly. "Paper maps do not run out of battery," she said. "Daniel always said that." Evelyn said, "Daniel said a lot of sensible things, and I am only now getting around to listening to all of them."
They talked about money, because Evelyn was an accountant and because Grace was practical and because a trip planned without money is a wish, not a plan. Evelyn opened a drawer and took out a folder, and in the folder were the figures she had worked out that afternoon, in her neat columns, with the totals underlined. Fuel, motels, food, a contingency for the bike, a contingency for herself. The numbers were modest. The trip was not extravagant. It was, Evelyn said, the kind of trip Daniel would have planned: enough, and no more, and a little left over for coffee in a town she had never been to. Grace looked at the figures and nodded. "That works," she said. "That works very well." Sarah said, "Mom, if you need anything—" and Evelyn cut her off, gently. "I do not need anything," she said. "I have the bike, and I have the map, and I have the time. That is enough." She did not say it proudly. She said it plainly, as a fact, and Grace and Sarah both heard the difference.
They talked about the small town, and about the coffee, and about what Evelyn would do when she got there. She would, she said, sit at the counter, and order coffee, and drink it slowly, and think of Daniel, and then she would walk the main street, and look at the shops, and buy a postcard, and send it to Sarah, and one to Grace, and one to Ray, and one to Frank, and one to Pete. "Postcards," Grace said, with a smile. "Very old-fashioned." "Very Daniel," Evelyn said. "He always sent postcards. Even from places an hour away. He said a postcard was proof you had actually been somewhere, and not just thought about it." Sarah laughed. "He sent me one from a petrol station once," she said. "It said, 'The coffee here is terrible. Wish you were here.'" Evelyn laughed too, and the laughter filled the kitchen, and the map lay between them, and the note hung on the wall, and for a moment the room felt full in a way it had not felt full for a long time — full of people, and plans, and the future, and not just full of memory.
When the planning was done for the evening, Grace washed the mugs and Evelyn folded the map, carefully, along its old creases, and put it back in the drawer with the folder. Sarah stayed on the phone a little longer, after Grace had gone home, and she and Evelyn talked the way they talked on Sundays, about the hospital, about the weather in Denver, about nothing much, and then Sarah said, "Mom, I am glad you are doing this." Evelyn stood at the kitchen window, looking out at the dark street and the garage, and she said, "I am glad too. I did not know I would be. I thought planning would make me sad. It does not. It makes me feel —" She stopped, searching for the word. Sarah waited. "It makes me feel like myself," Evelyn said. "Like the self I was before I stopped, and also like the self I am now. Both at once." Sarah said, "That is a good way to feel." Evelyn said, "It is. It is a very good way to feel."
After she hung up, Evelyn went to the garage, touched the tank, and thought of the mountain road ahead, and slept well, the map waiting in the drawer.