Oysters with Anne (of Green Gables)

Molly knew before they even got to the bridge that the week in Canada was probably going to be the end of their relationship. They hadn’t taken a vacation together in over two years – what between work commitments and the constant struggle to find someone to watch Scottie, their domestic shorthaired cat and Bundles, their beagle.

Molly had taken over the driving because Kurt decided he wanted to take a nap before they got to the hotel rather than at the hotel. He thought it might be nice if they could go to the pool before dinner, so he wanted to be rested. Molly found his tendency to plan every single hour of the day, even while on vacation, irritating. But at this point she didn’t want to argue with him. If she did, she might just jump out of the car. Not when it was moving, she wouldn’t do anything that stupid. But then where would that leave her? Standing on the side of the road? In Canada? She realized that even if they broke up on the trip, they’d still have to drive home together.

The traffic in front of her started to slow down and then she saw the back-up with a view of Confederation Bridge less than a mile away. Kurt and Molly hadn’t been to Prince Edward Island before, so they weren’t sure what to expect other than a lot of Anne of Green Gables tourist stuff. Molly didn’t think that Kurt would want to spend any time visiting anything remotely connected to the novel that Lucy Montgomery had published over 100 years ago. Therefore, Molly knew she’d be lucky if she just pretended she was lost driving around the island and maybe finagle a drive-by of the author’s home.

Molly rolled down the window and let the wind blow into the car. If Kurt woke up, she knew he’d start complaining that he was hot, but she didn’t care. She thought about turning on the radio too, but then Kurt coughed, and turned to look out the car window.

“How long have we been here?” he asked.

“Just a few minutes,” Molly said.

“I have to pee,” Kurt said.

Molly nodded. She did too.

“And I’m hungry.”

Molly nodded again.

“We should probably eat as soon as we get over the bridge,” Kurt said.

“Yeah.”

“It’s getting late,” Kurt said.

Molly looked at the clock in the car. It was nearly 2:30.

“Maybe a lobster roll?” Kurt offered.

“You wanted oysters though, right?” he continued.

“We can have some tonight,” Molly replied.

Kurt nodded and picked up his phone.

“Where are we?”

“Confederation Bridge,” Molly said.

She saw him type something into his phone and look at it briefly. He liked to read to her. Mostly fun facts, but sometimes historical stuff, too.  So, Molly knew she would be getting a mini-Wikipedia lesson shortly about the bridge or the island or both. When she first met him, she thought this was quaint, now it just annoyed her. They were only on day 2 of a 5-day trip so she knew she had quite a lot of “facts” coming her way.

She only had to count to 11 before he told her that the bridge was the longest bridge in the world crossing ice-covered water. Molly looked out the window and didn’t see any ice floating on the water. It was a sunny, fairly warm day in early September.

“Jesus,” Kurt said, apparently still reading.

“What?”

 “$47.75 to cross the bridge?”