Chapter Twelve Kiersten
Chapter Twelve
Kiersten
“Mom. Can we go now?”
Who was Dickie, and why was he such a jerk? And how had Dottie’s diaries ended up in her basement?
Matt tossed his glove onto the picnic blanket and sprawled down beside her lawn chair.
“Did we lose?” she asked, trying to keep the hopeful note from her voice.
His mouth puckered in irritation. “Yeah, thanks to me, and the first baseman, and the three other guys who struck out. We sucked. It was a slaughter.”
“I’m sorry, honey.”
As she folded up the blankets and lawn chairs, she considered the end result of this expedition.
She’d driven three hours in a minivan with four kids so her son could lose to neighboring teams from Falls Church and Arlington.
They could have skipped the drive and the hotel and played each other on a field fifteen minutes from home instead.
With a sigh of resignation, she herded the boys back to the car.
She punched “Home” on the GPS and then watched in dismay as the roadways on the fastest route available turned from blue to red. An accident somewhere.
She said a prayer, then leaned forward in the driver’s seat, shoulders hunched around her ears, fingers gripping the steering wheel, and plunged into the sea of cars.
“Mom, I’m hungry,” Johnny called from the third row.
She ignored this and grasped the steering wheel tighter.
Driving through rural Minnesota on a summer day felt like a form of meditation. Wide, sparsely trafficked highways winding through neatly planted rows of corn and soybeans under the cobalt dome of an endless sky, like a road trip through the Elysian Fields.
But this . . . this East Coast driving felt like hurtling through a vortex into the opening montage of The Sopranos. Careening down six lanes of traffic at seventy miles an hour, surrounded by smokestacks and concrete, boxed in by eighteen-wheelers. It induced a sort of vehicular claustrophobia.
An hour later, Matt frowned at her from the passenger seat. “Mom, I have to go to the bathroom.”
These were the first words he’d spoken since getting into the car. His brooding silence spoke volumes about the game and his performance.
She answered, gaze firmly glued to the highway. “I’m trying to find that truck stop we heard about with the Subway and the Burger King.”
Because no one could possibly be expected to agree on one fast-food restaurant. They needed to stop at the travel plaza with options for every palate in the car.
“Mom. Are we there yet? I’m starving,” James called from the row directly behind her.
She turned off at the next exit, as directed by the GPS, and pulled into the parking lot of a massive truck stop called Big Jim’s.
“We’re here,” she called in a cheery voice for the benefit of Luke, who had not complained about hunger, thirst, or a full bladder, and must therefore be asleep beneath his blanket tent. After another reminder, he emerged from his cocoon, groggy, with his hair sticking up.
She climbed out of the car, limbs stiff with tension. She needed this break for food and drink even more than the boys did.
They entered the crowded truck stop, and she clutched Johnny’s hand. At age eight, he was the only child who would still condescend to hold her hand in public.
Anodyne ’80s music washed over them, then faded into the background as they entered the food court, where tired travelers queued up for pizza, Doritos, and caffeine.
She spotted two families from Matt’s team seated at a cluster of tables near Auntie Anne’s pretzels. They gave a half-hearted wave but did not issue an invitation to join them.
Kiersten bit her lip and herded the boys around the travel plaza with her credit card. Burger King for Matt, Roy Rogers for Luke, Subway for James, Pizza Hut for Johnny.
They sat down at a little cluster of scratched metal tables and ate in tired silence.
“Does anyone need to use the restroom again?” she asked when they finished.
They shook their heads.
“Okay,” she said. “I need to use the ladies’ room.”
The boys had used the bathroom when they first arrived, while she kept watch just outside.
It still creeped her out to send her boys into the men’s restroom alone, even though Matt was responsible enough to look after his younger brothers.
She’d stood sentry at the entrance, with a Those Boys Have a Mother Who Is Paying Attention look on her face, as a warning to prospective kidnappers, pedophiles, and fugitives from justice.
She gave Matt the keys to the minivan. “You boys throw away your trash while I use the ladies’ room. I’ll meet you in the car.”
She used the facilities, then caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she washed her hands.
The dingy fluorescent light accentuated the dark circles under her eyes. Her gaze traveled from her limp hair to her squashy midsection, and then to the pizza stain on her T-shirt.
She had wanted to eat something healthy, she really and truly had, but the three carrot sticks with hummus in the “healthy” section of the truck stop convenience store were no match for her screaming hunger pangs. So she’d eaten the remnants of the french fries and pizza left by her offspring.
She examined her face more closely. Was that facial hair? On her upper lip?
She’d become a crone. A death crone. She’d reached the age when, according to a History Channel special she’d watched one night when her husband was out of town and she was too tired to get up off the couch and go to bed, her Stone Age tribe would march her out to the tundra and urge her to take the Long Walk.
Given that she was the most decrepit member of the clan, her death would allow the others to successfully ration the remains of the wooly mammoth they’d just killed and survive the winter.
Leaning forward, she looked at herself again. Really looked this time.
What had become of her? The witty person who excelled at Scrabble and loved Jane Austen novels and had friends to sit with at children’s sporting events?
The emergency room nurse who specialized in making trauma patients feel both safe and comfortable?
The high school basketball star who’d led her tiny hometown to victory in the state tournament so many years ago?
Where had that person gone? And how had this become her life?
No friends. No hobbies. No profound thoughts on books, movies, politics, religion, war, peace, AI, or the future of humanity.
Just damp, stringy hair in a pizza-stained T-shirt and jeans that no longer fit, listening to “Jessie’s Girl” play through tinny speakers at a truck stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike at five o’clock on a Saturday night.
Heaving a sigh that emanated from the very marrow of her bones, she left the restroom and walked back to the minivan. An indecisive rain began to spit down from the sky, casting a fine mist that shrouded the world in gray.
She got in the car and glanced in the rearview mirror. The little blanket settlement was back up again. She couldn’t see faces. Just lumps.
“Everyone ready?”
Now it began to pour, fat drops thumping the roof of the minivan.
She called out again, louder this time, pitching her voice above the pounding rain.
The boys didn’t respond, probably because they were wearing headphones.
Too tired to harangue them for a response, she pulled out of the parking lot, headlights cutting through fine needles of rain, and headed home.