Turo

At least the Turo was easy to cancel. I accessed the trip through the app, which had kindly saved my username and password, and tapped the Cancel button, a digital space of graphical control. I thanked myself for pressing that Save Username and Password button, and then spiraled out infinitely, thanking the button designers, web technicians, internet, and me again for propagating the evolution of technology.

I felt proud for using the alternative car rental app. It gave me a great rate. Like an Airbnb for cars. Vacation car rentals from regular owners who happen to have an extra car to rent out.

Mainstream rental companies were rude. I used Groupon exactly once for a car rental through Avis. It went well, so I used Avis again. This time, I upgraded to a Mustang because I had shortened the trip by a few days and chose to level up rather than get a refund. I even signed up for their customer reward program. Once they had my loyalty, their price became the highest contract.

So, Turo.

Do people not notice?

When I mentioned the price of Avis to my sister, she remembered hearing about Turo. Exactly 10 minutes later, I had booked a 2012 Toyota Camry for two weeks and $286 dollars. The only thing I had to do was Uber over to some guy named Doug’s house in the next town over to pick up my car. For $286, no problem. My pleasure, Doug.

I canceled the Turo when my ex-husband told me that he had a car for me to use while I was in town. It was my car, actually, my old car. He sent me a picture of it parked in my garage, 12 doors down from his house.

“Back to its original owner,” he said.

It was a 2008 Mercury Milan. We had bought it new. He was working for Ford at the time, and Ford was selling Mercury. We put it in my name and credit, keeping his name nowhere near his discount. We paid it off, kept it, drove it up to New York when we moved to be closer to my family after having kids, and then drove it back down to Florida five years later when we separated and divorced.

We acquired a second car while living in New York at my parents’ house. The teal Mazda, as the kids called it. The Mazda was my car, and he absorbed the Milan. Because of snow and safety. When he drove it back down south, it was his car. He moved first to start his last semester of clinicals in the hospital where he wanted to work after graduation. He bought himself a congratulatory Jeep and gave the Milan to his parents, who soon sold it to their grandson. Once, I saw it parked in the Winn-Dixie parking lot.

Traitor.

It had no retort. What could it say to redeem itself in my eyes?

Not long after, the Milan was posted for sale on Facebook.

Treachery.

But I had no claim to this car that was put in my name. Still, it hurt.

It all hurt.

He picked the kids and me up from the airport in the Jeep and dropped me at my door before toting the kids back to his place. As avowed, there it was in my garage, my old Milan, with no license plate and two flat tires.

Touché.

He said things about insurance and tags. These things, these worldly issues, that his ex-wife had not thought of. No, they had not entered my stream of consciousness.

It was Thanksgiving Day, and he had an appointment at the DMV next week.

As he drove away, he invited me to dinner at his place with the kids, his family, and his girlfriend and her kids. When he got home, he texted me, uninviting me since his girlfriend felt uncomfortable.

I walked to the Dollar Store for some food. It was open and within walking distance. I left there with some drinks and snacks for when the kids came over. If the kids came over. We weren’t yet in the habit of planning things out really well. We winged a lot of things.

When I got home, I realized I still needed a few necessities and decided on a second trip. I walked to his house to borrow a scooter, the one I had bought myself to play with the kids the last time I was here. I scooted as far as the 7-11 at the entrance of the community when he texted me to hurry back because now all the kids wanted to play outside, and they were one scooter short. I could borrow his mountain bike, instead. I bought toilet paper and scooted back, shut in for the night.

The next morning, he texted me a picture of the gift card he had forgotten to give me to use for groceries while I was here. The school had sent one out to all of the kids in the district who had been receiving free school lunch. By virtue of the community we lived in and the school the kids were attending at the time the pandemic hit, we had two cards.

I knew about the cards from an email the month before. Incorrectly, I had assumed he gave them to his parents to help them out, but no. He kept one and gave me the other one with a few hundred bucks on it for food.

I made an online cart, then realized at the checkout that it would cost $18 to have the groceries delivered. Delivery plus tip. I was just trying to make it through the weekend, to whatever day it would be when I had tires, insurance, and a registration. Money was tight, so I rode.

When I passed my ex’s house, the kids were outside playing

“How was your first night back at Dad’s?” I asked, hugging and kissing them in a new good morning ceremony.

“Good,” said my daughter, busying herself with a game of scooter tag, sick of me, having just spent a month with me in New York. She was happy to start her month here with Dad.

“Good,” said my son, hugging me tight.

I smiled at the girlfriend’s kids, introduced myself, and looked up to see the girlfriend.

“You can borrow my car if you want,” she offered, “instead of riding the bike.”

“I don’t mind the ride,” I said. “Plus, I don’t want to leave you here with all the kids and no car. But thank you.”

At its lowest setting, the bike was about two inches too big for me. Still, I rode it. I rode it 6.5 miles to the Winn-Dixie. I rode it through a construction site for about half a mile. I rode it on the six-inch shoulder for another half a mile. I rode it in the grass when there was no sidewalk, no shoulder, nor a coned-off section to trespass upon. I rode it and blew kisses to the drivers who honked at me and flipped me the bird while I rode on a stretch of back road that I thought would be safer. I rode it with a reusable grocery bag strapped to my shoulders, gathering bread, eggs, milk, two avocados, and two mangos. I rode it home, dropped off the groceries, then rode it back to the 7-11 and bought two small boxes of Moscato, pink and white.

At some point, the kids scooted over with their dad to grab some stuff from their suitcases, and he brought me a plate of leftover Thanksgiving dinner.

Thank God for favors of all sizes.