Your Journey? None of My Business

To celebrate our seventh anniversary, James Ludwig spent three months modifying an off-road camper van by hand, and said he wanted to take me on a tour of Newland. The night before we were set to leave, I went to the van to stow our luggage, only to find a six-year-old boy’s growth journal and a family photo tucked in a hidden compartment in the van's undercarriage storage. In the photo, James stood protectively beside a heavily pregnant woman, and this very camper van was in the background. James pulled open the door and climbed in. When he saw the photo in my hand, he immediately pulled me into a hug in a panic, "Honey, let me explain! That’s a junior schoolmate I sponsored. Seven years ago I got drunk and had a one-time mistake with her… "She has raised the baby alone, never thinking about sabotaging our family. Now the boy is six, and he keeps begging to see snow-capped mountains. I have to fulfill my responsibility as his father! "This van was modified specifically for you! I won’t bring them tomorrow, it’ll just be the two of us on the trip, okay?" I looked at the childproof edge guards taped all around the cabin, and the ambient light on the wall felt painfully blinding. I didn’t push him away. I just gently pulled my hand out of his and said, "Okay." The next morning, he went out in high spirits to buy my favorite breakfast. "No, thank you. I don’t drink strawberry flavor, and I don’t take things that belong to kids." I didn’t take the milk James held out to me. The ambient light inside the van fell on the milk carton. A waterproof name tag was stuck to the straw, printed with the name, Eugene Ludwig. James’s hand froze mid-air. He glanced at the name tag, and a flash of chagrin crossed his eyes. But he quickly tucked the milk back into the van's built-in fridge, opened a bottle of water, and held it out to me again. "Nancy, don’t be like this." His tone was gentle, edged with the patience honed by years of being together. "Vivian carried the baby alone and gave birth to him back then, she went through so much hardship. As a man, I can’t just be a coward and run away from my responsibilities." I looked at the water he held out, and didn’t take it. "So this is how you take responsibility? You turned my seventh anniversary gift into a nanny van for them?" James set the water bottle on the small folding tray beside me, sighed, and reached out to take my hand. "I told you, I converted this RV just for you." His gaze swept over the RV interior, full of certainty. "The adjustable-height chassis is your favorite, and the starlight ceiling was built exactly from the blueprint you drew. How could I not take your needs into account?" I followed his line of sight. The chassis was indeed adjustable. To make it easier for a child to climb in and out, the running board had been adjusted to its lowest height. The starlight ceiling was there, too. But on the back wall, originally designed to hold a projection screen, a car tablet now hung. Its screen was on, showing half-downloaded episodes of Peppa Pig. Even more glaring were the impact-resistant soft pads stuck to the edges of the seats, and the kid's bed tucked in the corner, which was too big to fit in the storage bin. "Nancy, why is your face so pale?" When James saw me silent, he assumed I just couldn’t accept it for the moment. He instinctively leaned over, reaching out to fasten the collar button of my windbreaker for me. This was a habit he’d formed taking care of me for seven years. Whenever I felt cold, he could always notice it right away. But the very second his fingertips brushed my collar, the car screen suddenly lit up. A voice message played automatically, "Daddy, did you pack my little dinosaur sleeping bag? I need to hold it to sleep tomorrow." The young boy's voice was high and clear, and it stood out sharply in the still, quiet RV. James’s hand froze abruptly. He instinctively turned off the screen, and averted his gaze uneasily. "Eugene gets picky sleeping in new places. Vivian was worried he wouldn’t sleep well on the road, so she insisted on packing the sleeping bag." He tried to pass this off as just a mother's worry. "Don’t take it to heart. I won’t bring them tomorrow, I mean what I say." I looked at his face, where he was trying so hard to keep up a false calm. Seven years ago, he held my hand and stood in front of a scrapped van. Back then he was just starting his business, so broke he could barely even pay rent. He pointed at that pile of scrap metal and said that one day he would convert a vehicle for me with his own hands that could take us into the uninhabited wilderness. I smiled and held out my hand back then, "Then I get the first key." Now the first key hangs right by the car door, with a silicone keychain slipped over it. Footsteps suddenly sounded outside the vehicle. Mr. Walker, who worked the night shift at the modification shop, walked over carrying a toolbox and tapped on the window. James rolled the window down. "Mr. Ludwig, still here?" Mr. Walker wiped the motor oil off his hands, then smiled and passed a wrench in through the open window. "I reinforced the kid's non-slip running board one more time. It'll definitely hold steady for the long drive tomorrow. It'll be safe for you and the kid to ride in." For a moment, the air inside the car went dead still. Mr. Walker was a blunt, no-nonsense man, so he did not pick up on the tense atmosphere in the car, and when he glanced in, his eyes landed right on me. "Oh! You must be Mrs. Ludwig! Mr. Ludwig stayed up three straight nights working on this family trip, you know." The color drained from James's face instantly. "Mr. Walker, just leave the tools here. You can get back to your work now." He rolled the window back up quickly, cutting off all sound from outside. "Nancy, he doesn't know the whole story, he's just talking nonsense." James turned his head and looked at me anxiously. "I really only decided to take them to see the snow mountain at the last minute. I barely changed the route at all." I did not look at him. Instead, I lowered my head and stared at the navigation display on the center console. A route that had been set long ago glowed brightly on the screen. I extended a finger and tapped to open the trip details. The trip wasn’t named "Seventh Anniversary Newland Loop." It was "Eugene’s First Trip to See the Snow Mountain."