Page 26 of Second Chance

14

Road Trips

[Denton]

Road trips were what we did. Or rather, a ride was our thing.

When Mati no longer allowed me to stay in her bed, the night we fought over her reason—Kristy—she didn’t stay away long.

Another night.

Another fist.

I stole my father’s car to get away.

Pushing it down the drive, the tires crunched over the gravel. I got halfway down the path when Mati came out of nowhere.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, her voice still too loud in the silence of the mountain night.

“I’m going for a ride.” I kept pushing, willing the tires to quiet but knowing the request was unreasonable. Fortunately, my dad was passed out and would not hear a sound anyway.

“Where?”

“Anywhere but here,” I snapped, my voice terse, my muscles tense from pressing at the car.

“I’m going with you.”

“Why?” I stopped, standing to my full height. I didn’t need her sympathy any longer. She’d made herself clear and clarity settled deeper when she started officially dating Chris.

“Because…because…” She paused, licking her lips and looking back at my house—the Southern columned structure a symbol of status, and yet haunted within. Because you love me, my heart cried. “Because we can pretend we’re running away.”

Pretend.

“Fine,” I huffed. “Get in and hold the steering wheel steady.”

My anger released the more the car moved toward the Lane, the dirt strip joining three ancient homes—the Harringtons’, ours, and the Conrads’. Mati climbed to the passenger’s side allowing me to hop in the driver’s seat. I turned to her, preparing to tell her I didn’t need her, but when I looked over at her, she smiled. A genuine smile like I hadn’t seen in a long while from her. Her face lit up and I compared her to a dog, the ones eager to just ride in the car, wind on their face, not a care in the world. She wasn’t a pup, though. She was beautiful, and I wanted to capture the sensation, capture her.

Instead, I turned the key, and the engine purred to life, breaking the silence of midnight and off we went. No destination in place. Just took a ride.

+ + +

My body still hums from the near kiss with Mati. I should have taken her against the truck like my body begged me. But I want Mati to recognize me. I want her to know it’s me kissing her, not a ghost, wish fulfillment, or a replacement. I need her to see me.

The next day, I’m thinking of her and the first ride we took as I follow the road to my grandmother’s house. I’m finally on my way to see my mother. Twenty minutes along the woods around Blue Ridge and a dirt drive pulls me back to my roots. Dolores and Shamus McIntyre, our great-grandparents, owned this farm. Their daughter, Magnolia McIntyre married Edwin Duncan and moved to town where she opened her diner, named after her mother. When Edwin died after a fall from a ladder, Magnolia returned to the farm for her parents’ help raising her girls. Her daughters rebelled against farm life and married men who would carry them away.

My mother, Caroline, didn’t get any farther than town, up to three full blocks from the original train stop and a strip of shops, including said diner. She climbed out of her farm girl background after she met Kip Chance at a community dance in Elton, a town at the base of our ridge. Love at first sight, she’d tease, keeping up the pretense of my father being a romantic man. Her sister, Rosalyn, married a preacher, Reverend Thomas Lawson Carrigan, a man travelling through the town, who stopped at the diner for a cup of coffee. He took her as far as Texas before settling down when the first of two kids came along.

Both children ran away from them.

I ran away from here.

Running seems to be a family trait.

I exhale as the dust whirls around my car. The precious beast will need a bath after this drive. I pull up to the rough patch of trampled dirt before the house and park. Everything looks…dilapidated. The large gray, clapboard sided home looks dirty with equally unclean white shutters, missing here and there. One window is boarded over. The sprawling front porch sags as do the front steps looking like they might collapse under the weight of another foot. A faded red barn in the background slants. It’s picturesque if not a bit sad. Suddenly, I wish I had my camera which I left in my room at the Lodge. I don’t take stills but sometimes, something in nature will take my breath, and I just want to capture the moment as best I can. Surprisingly, the farm setting feels this way to me, and I want to keep the moment. I’ve let too many moments pass.

Another memory comes to me of sitting in this driveway looking up at the house.

“You gonna be all right?” I asked as we sat in Magnolia’s driveway. Chris stared at my grandmother’s home.