One summer my family traveled across Canada in a motor home called The Merry Miler. We had just bought a new house on an oak-lined street, hadn?t even moved in, but suddenly we were leaving Calgary and moving to Toronto for no reason.

My mother kept things up in The Merry Miler like she did at home. There were petunias in a vase she?d velcroed to the pull-out table, fluffy towels in the water closet, Irish linen curtains on the windows. She hung rosary beads from the rear view mirror. I don?t know why. Only my father went to church. My mother would stay home and practice her violin, while he made my sister and me put on dresses and go with him to hear the dull sermon, follow the words in the thin-paper hymnal. I hadn?t been to confession in six months, but I took Communion anyway because I didn?t want my father to know I had something to hide. I?d stolen our next-door neighbor?s ruby ring. I?d heard her crying through the open bedroom window after two hours of searching. The police car had driven up to her house, and I?d watched from my bedroom window while she filed a report. The ring stayed with me at all times: in the pocket of my jeans, or in my pencil case. I imagined a time when I lived alone and could wear it. I never doubted I would still want it by then.

My father drove all day while my mother found the next RV park in the giant guidebook. They listened to the BBC and didn?t talk much. At night he watched football on the portable TV, and my sister and I sauntered around the grounds. If we found boys our age we vaulted over our own shyness because time was precious. The next morning my father would start the engine and we?d be riding off like cowboys on fresh horses, so for the short time we had we were captivating, all possibility. Around these boys we could be sluts or angels, smart, dense, funny. We could try other personalities.

In Manitoba, I sidled up to an older guy with bangs in his eyes. I imagined myself on the lam and meant to come off like Faye Dunaway in ?Bonnie & Clyde,? but I started to cry and told him the secret like he was a roadside priest. He kissed me behind The Merry Miler, hooked his fingers in the loops of my jeans, then slid his hands deep down in my pockets until he found the ring. I asked him to keep it, but he said he wasn?t interested in stolen goods.

I don?t know why we took such a long time to get to Toronto. My parents were in no hurry. They didn?t fight, but something was wrong. My father did all the driving as we steadfastly worked our way across four wide provinces. My mother looked out the window and blew her cigarette smoke through the vent.

I hung around the little kitchen while my mother made dinner. ?I thought you loved the new house,? I said. She had gone on and on about the Persian light fixtures the owner was leaving behind.

?I should?ve taken them with us,? she said, sadly, like they were best friends she?d left behind.

At night my father took walks by himself, while my mother sat in the folding chair under the striped awning and smoked. When he wasn?t looking she poured gin into a Styrofoam cup decorated with balloons, and when he asked she said it was Sprite.

We?d thrown our own going-away party for our friends and not everyone came, so there were a hundred plastic forks and knives left over, stacks of turquoise plates, and yellow napkins that stunk of dye. Our next-door neighbor had hugged my neck and wished me luck, love and happiness wherever I lived, and pressed a delicate silver bracelet in my hand as a gift.

Every night my mother set the Formica table in The Merry Miler and served the stews or soups she?d heated in small pots on the miniature stove. She poured iced tea into the leftover party cups, set lemon slices on a plastic plate.

At first our motor home felt magical and compact, like a dollhouse, but by Saskatchewan it had turned into a can on wheels. Prison. My mother nagged at us to read novels or notice the scenery. My sister played solitaire, and I took long naps on the narrow bed that pulled down from the ceiling, or stayed up there to daydream about the boys I?d just left, the tongue kisses and bare skin touches, the boners, the near-sex, my suspended lust, and what would I do when we stopped moving? Who would I be?

We stayed an extra night at a park called The Whispering Tree, right on the shore of Lake Ontario. My mother had appealed to my father to add another day because we had a front row view of the clear, still lake.

?The air smells good here,? she said. I don?t think she wanted the trip to end.

We barbecued in the pavilion, grilled steaks and hamburgers, steamed fresh corn on the cob in tin foil. For desert, we squeezed roasted marshmallows between graham crackers. My sister begged my father to rent a canoe and paddle with her around the lake.

I walked up on my mother crying next to a pine tree, but didn?t ask her what was wrong because I thought it was my dad. We watched an RV family from Michigan play badminton on the grass.

?Do you miss your violin?? I said.

She smiled a little. ?I?ll get back to it.?

I took off the silver bracelet, offered it to her, and she wore it the rest of way.

In the morning my father disconnected the sewer line, unplugged us from the electrical outlet that came with every parking slot, and aimed for our last RV stop. We were one day away.

I walked to the front of the motor home, crouched low to talk to my parents in their captain?s chairs. ?We have nowhere to live in Toronto,? I said to the side of my father?s face.

?Houses are a dime a dozen,? he said.

?I had friends in Calgary,? I said.

?You?ll make new ones,? my mother said. She fiddled with the dial on the radio, found a news station for the weather ahead.

?Whose decision is this to leave?? I said. My father didn?t answer.

?Ours,? my mother said, ?Sit back down, now. Eat some breakfast.?

My parents drank coffee my mother had brewed in the espresso pot, split a plate of buttered toast on the console between them. My sister and I, not hungry, stared out the back window.