Exploration

First person persona narrator uses second person and travel to reminisce and 
explore loss. 

*******************************************************************************

	It’s your turn.  Driving north from Tucson, you glide in and out around
the trucks coming up from Nogales, girl-woman, dozing and twitching next to you
in the wind.  Soft mountains, the Tortillitas, pass by on your right and you 
remember the short box canyons, the girl’s hand in yours and the wind whistling
through the needles of the saguaro.  Soon, you pass the Black Canyon Highway, 
the path to Sedona and Oak Creek – picnics and the swish, sway and splash of 
Slide Rock, with your two families, new and old. But, you turn to the left – 
heading towards the glitter of Disneyland, Mom and apple pie, first time for 
her, second for you.  She stretches like a Siamese cat, slides in a CD and 
Pearl Jam fills the car.  You grin at each other and sing.  This one belongs to
both of you and your voices sing out as the flat desert, where creosote and 
sage run endlessly before you.

	Soon, she dozes off again.  You remember this hill and that one.  
Twenty times to LA on the same road does that.  This dirt road where you stood 
hitchhiking at 13 when you ran away and was it that telephone pole or this one 
where you and your big brother had to throw up because mom chain smoked in the 
car, and then that was the gas station where your Dad stopped because the car 
was overheating.  You pull off to refill and she goes to pee.  You watch as she
sways her hips in her short, tight cut offs heading around back of the station,
swinging the key.

	With four bottles of water stowed in the ice chest, you head out and 
start up the hills to LA.  At the top, she isn’t impressed.  The brown skied 
valley disappears in the distance below you.  You shrug and start your descent 
into the miasma.  She turns up the Violent Femmes.  You sing as the eucalyptus 
trees fly by.  At the hotel, she changes into her bikini and grabbing a towel, 
heads for the pool.  You’d like to join her, but the sun…. You take a shower.
  
	There was the last time you were here in this hotel on the morning 
after Disneyland.  Your dad sat across the table downstairs in Coco’s with a 
sad smile on his face.  You ate pancakes and eggs and hashbrowns and bacon.  
He drank his coffee and smoked three cigarettes.  When you were done and the 
waitress had taken the plates and he had paid the bill, he stared at you.  No, 
it was through you.  He lit another cigarette and asked you/told you you were 
pregnant.  But you weren’t.  He told you your mother could tell.  But she 
couldn’t. 
 
	You weren’t.
 
	The next day you go to Disneyland, rides, apple pie and Main Street.  
You both run from one ride to the next, Pirates of the Caribbean and Magic 
Mountain.  You laugh and whirl and fall down waterfalls together.  You know 
that this is the last time it will be this way and you are going to enjoy it.

	The next day, you avoid Coco’s, heading for Denny’s instead.  When your
food comes, you stare at it, lump in your stomach and a latte in your hand.  
She eats like there is no tomorrow.

	Later, in the mountains, heading for Portland and home, you stop in 
Grapevine.  She needs to pee.  Back in the car, as you pull onto I-5, you 
glance at her.  Then you look ahead through the smeary windshield with the 
added blur of tears in your eyes.  A second, a minute – you hold your breath.  
Then, you tell her that she’s pregnant.  Shocked, she denies.
  
	But, she is.

Kathleen Speck
01/18/09