Have you ever been in a car accident?
Well, neither have I. My mother was the best teacher when it came to driving. I watched her break at every stop sign and look both ways. The car across from us would whizz by without care in the world. She’d say: “Don’t drive like that.” I listened. I got my license when I was 16 years old. On my 17th birthday a few months later, she handed me the keys to my 1996 Honda Civic. It was just as old as me with the light, metallic silver paint peeling from the hood as if years in the sun caused the paint to run away from the ultraviolent rays. The radio played nothing but a permanent static, and the check engine light always greeted me with a soft, yellow hue every time I turned the key in the ignition. When you took it on the freeway, the steering wheel would shiver and shake as if it was just as scared as you to merge with the traffic. It would groan at every stop, and drip oil like tears on the black pavement of the street when it was parked.
I loved that car. I named her Emily the Speedwagon. Emily served me well, getting me to and from my job working as a barista for a local coffee shop. Emily would sigh in relief when I parked her in my unofficially designated parking spot every morning – Wednesday through Saturday – and celebrate when I would take the key out of her ignition. She’d greet me with a groan after my 6-hour shift, and whine and cry to me as I drove her home.
I loved that car.
You could imagine my dismay when I opened my eyes to see her in the ditch several feet away from me, flipped completely upside down. My body felt like it weighed three times my weight. I couldn’t move; all I could do was look at her. Emily the Speedwagon groaned in the light breeze, the rising sun tormenting her silver paint no longer. Her driver’s door was lying next to her. Her windshield was shattered with pieces of her scattered across the ground, glistening like crystals. Her right headlight was completely busted in, the entire right side of the car was dented in, too.
I have never been in a car accident. Well, not that I can remember. Though, Emily’s carcass says differently. I watched the sun rise behind her as if she was a mountain to overcome before I finally found the strength to push myself off the ground. I tried to orientate myself: where was I? What happened? These two questions floated in my mind as I painstakingly looked around. Everything looked empty and flat. Grass rolled through the ditch Emily and I found ourselves in, but I saw no curvature beyond that. A mile marker read 1845 a little ways up the road from what I could see, but other than that? Nothing. I had to get up to get a better view.
I must get up to get a better view, yet every bone in my body cries out to me to lay back down and rest. More questions came into my mind: How am I still alive? How can I get help? Every time I tried to think, a sharp pain grew behind my forehead. I wiped it with my sleeve, and the once washed out yellow of it came back red. The red color made me sit up erect. Another question: Am I going to die? No, no. I won’t. I remembered my Motorola Razr v3 that I always set on my dash. My mother had got the phone for me when they were new. She had saved up for one for both of us since it was released two years ago. She even got me the special edition black one we saw on cable. I got onto my hands and knees and started to crawl towards Emily in hopes I would find it and be able to call her. I crawled over the crystal-like glass shards and finally saw it beside the driver’s door. I immediately snatched it, and relief finally pooled its way through my body as I flipped it open. The screen had one large crack torn right through the middle of it, and when it lit up, large lines of red and green ripped through the screen horizontally. But it lit up, and I, fortunately, could dial my mother’s phone number without needing the display.
I sat in anticipation as I heard it ring once. The usually annoying tone sounded like the call of an angel. It rang a second time, and I started to get a little nervous. The third time, I remembered my mother is likely still asleep; she works the night shift at the same coffee shop I work at, after all. After the sixth ring, I finally heard her voicemail:
“Hello! You’ve reached Diane Pinemiles. I’m either sleeping or busy, so please leave me a message and I’ll get right back to you! Thank you!”
I heard the message tone, and for the first time, I opened my mouth to speak.
“Mom-“ I immediately began to cough. Words felt like daggers in my throat, but I cleared it as fast as I could so that my time didn’t run out.
“Mom, it’s River. I think I was in an accident. I don’t know where I am but I’m by- uh…Mile marker 1845 in what seems like the middle of nowhere. Please call me back. Love you, bye.”
As I hung up, another question: Why did I drive out here?
Why am I here?
Sitting there, staring at my broken phone screen, I contemplated dialing 9-1-1. They could track my cell and find me, right? They could help me, right? With the sun staring down at me, I reached over to the passenger side and opened Emily’s glovebox to retrieve my sunglasses to help with this god forsaken headache. With them fell a bunch of paperwork: my registration, all the receipts I kept from mechanical services, and my now expired insurance card. Well, it expired several months ago. I figured as a safe driver with a license going on 4 years, I didn’t need it. It seemed to laugh at me now; the Progressive logo in the center of the paper pointing at me like a high school bully.
I flipped my phone back closed. I’m still alive and I doubt the police will be able to find me any quicker than I can figure out where I am myself… It Definitely has nothing to do with the fact I don’t want a ticket for not carrying insurance. Not at all! I saw the gleaming brown leather of my wallet towards the backseat laying on the roof of the car and grabbed it. Opening it up, I was relieved to see everything was still in place. Thank God I’m not broke and stranded; just stranded. My driver’s license picture smiled back at me. My hair was shorter then. I had gotten a pixie cut, which didn’t complement my round features, or the freckles scattered manically throughout my face. My hair has grown out to my shoulders now: curly and wild and ginger as it has always been. I leaned onto the side of the car and contemplated my next steps:
First, I must figure out where I am. Mile marker 1845 isn’t enough of a clue. Second, I must figure out why I’m here. It’s obvious that I’m no longer in New York City where my mother and I moved after she divorced my dad. Breathing in clear, fresh air and the smell of grass, I doubt I’m near New York at all. Third, I must find a way to get back home.
It seems like my only option is to move forward. Forward as in move, period. I got back into position and started to crawl away from my beloved Emily. All I have to do is make it to the road, I told myself. I’ll know more when I make it to the road. Steadily, I crawled my way up the steep hill out of the ditch. My hands and knees cried out for me to stop, but I knew I couldn’t. There could be a building or a house nearby, or a sign that tells me where the closest town was. The smell of grass became clearer as I made my way slowly up the hill. I started to see the top of a tree and hear the song of a mourning dove coming from its direction. This hill was starting to feel like a mountain the further I crawled up it. I had to take a break partway through, but the last half was easier after the break.
The road was only two lanes: one for incoming traffic and one for oncoming traffic. It had cracks running far along the faded grey asphalt and the yellow and white lines were barely visible. I could make out a giant pothole at least 100 feet behind me. Not a single car could be seen using it, and the mile marker sign was the only sign I could see until the next mile marker sign. I could confirm that I was in the middle of nowhere, and I could confirm that the area was flat land beyond the eye could see. Huge farmlands were on both sides of the road with scarcely a tree. The unpleasant smell of cow dun faintly tickled my nose underneath the overpowering aroma of the grass beneath me. Thick, fluffy clouds littered the sky and occasionally hid the sun from me. Thankfully, I could see some buildings up by the next mile marker… But it is a mile marker. Am I in any condition to walk that far?
I hung my head and let my hair brush against the grass and rested for a moment. The only thing I have confirmed is that I am definitely not in New York, and help is at least a mile up the road. This next portion of my journey is going to be difficult. I started yearning to hear my mom’s voice – to have her wrap her arms around me and tell me it’ll all be okay.
“You’re my strong girl,” she’d tell me. “This is just a little hiccup. We’ll get through it together.”
I’ve heard those words so, so many times before. It’s been me and her since I was very little, maybe 6 years old at the most. We ran into a lot of hiccups throughout my childhood: we were constantly moving from place to place – state to state – home to home – and we had very little to show for belongings. At least having two suitcases was easy to move around: one for my clothes, one for my toys. She never let me leave a single toy behind, either. She had sacrificed so much for me: her free time, her money, her sleep; hells, even her sanity. When she bought Emily the Speedwagon, she used all the money she saved to go on vacation to Hawaii. She had been saving that money for years. Looking back to Emily’s carcass, guilt washed all over me. Tears weld up in my eyes as the question of why cried out throughout my body.
Why, why, why, I asked myself, and a resemblance of an answer appeared to me as the memory of swerving headlights plummeting towards me popped up in my brain. I turned my head back to the pothole, and I saw it: the truck’s tire fell into it and lost control. I turned my steering wheel to avoid a head-on collision, and Emily flipped with the force of the truck’s hit. I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. She threw me out of the car through the windshield as she went tumbling into the ditch. Emily saved my life, probably.
I’ll miss that car.
With a question answered, I found motivation to continue. I pushed myself up and onto my feet. I nearly fainted, putting all my weight onto my legs. But I thankfully stayed strong enough to keep myself upright. I stood there, getting used to the ache in my legs and waiting for the pounding in my head to become tolerable. By some miracle, it doesn’t seem like any of my bones are broken. I took my first step towards the houses down the road. The second was less graceful; My knee almost buckled under me and sent me right back down into the ditch I crawled out of. Literally. The third step was almost normal, but still painful. The forth and the fifth came in quick succession. Next thing I knew, I was walking down the road.
The highway itself seemed to beacon me forth. I felt like it knew something I didn’t. I felt like it wanted me to continue – to go marker to marker and discover the rest of it. The plethora of little rocks on the side of it called for me to kick them away. To show the road some attention it never got. Strangely, it reminded me of something. The memory was so old it was black-and-white in my mind. My little feet walked down a road like this one, kicking rocks as I went down. A man’s voice called out to me: “That’s it! Show those rocks whose boss. Riv!” The voice was distant, yet familiar. I heard it another time, too: an equally faded memory of chasing chickens through grass, the same voice behind me calling out, “Stop pestering the chickens, Riv! They’ll peck your eyes out!’
“I’m a herding dog!” I yelled back. My voice was small – delicate and young. I tried to recall the man’s face, but all that came to me was his short ginger hair and unkept beard. I remember a woman beside him, hanging on his shoulder. Her hair was dirty blonde, eyes crinkling as she laughed and pulled down on the man’s shoulder. She was my mother. That
would mean the man… My father? His name was rarely mentioned in our house. I would talk to him maybe once a month nowadays, but rarely ever when I was a child after my mom took me and left him behind. She told me he was a narcissistic alcoholic and described all his many wrongdoings every time I asked about him. He was a terrible partner to her, so why am I thinking of him now?
As I walked further down the road, I tried to remember what I could of him. My mother divorced him, and we moved away. I never saw him again. I remember hearing them fighting one night and crawling out of bed. My father was sitting on the couch, head in his hands, as my mother yelled at him. Her exact words are gone from my memory, but the look of anger on her face is plastered like permanent marker. She turned it to me, frowned, and scooped me up. She slept in bed with me that night; the next, we were in the car with our things in the trunk. I remember she told me to face forwards, as I had turned around in my seat to watch him run after us. I was crying.
The more I thought about it, the more my surroundings seemed familiar. The odor of grass permeating my nose, and the hint of cow dun did so again as I ran through the fields chasing chickens. The sky was filled with the same thick, fluffy clouds. I would pretend to eat them. Before I knew it, I could make out the numbers 1846 on the next mile marker, and the buildings weren’t much farther ahead. On one, I could make out a poorly spray-painted portrait of a yellow rubber duck in a chef’s hat with the words “Dan’s Diner” plastered over it in a bright, neon green. I saw it in my faded memory, too – I saw the same ginger man that was my father shaking up the cans that made it. I remember doing the same, spraying bright yellow onto the grass underneath it. He laughed. “You’re so talented already! Hells, you’ll be painting the whole town yourself next year.” I grinned proudly at him.
I have history with this place, whatever it was. As I looked behind me towards Emily the Speedwagon, the highway seemed to grin at me. It seemed to take away all of my pain as I stood and stared at where I was, and forward towards everything else. I could make out a gas station painted bright pink and yellow was ahead with a convenience market just about half a mile up the road. Several residential houses seemed to be scattered about between it. Gravel roads forked off the highway sporadically. From the gravel roads, desire paths were carved out of the grass with tractor tracks in diagonals across the land. I took in the landscape and took a deep breath as I continued forwards.
I decided to head to the diner and see if anyone was inside that could help me. Maybe they could tow Emily out of the ditch or point me in the direction where I could get some medical attention. Anything, really, would be helpful. Walking closer, it looked as if the diner hadn’t been upkept for years; maybe even a decade. The front door seemed to be poorly painted a bright, mustard yellow, but it was peeling off to reveal the wood. Up close, It looked as if it was just another house made to seem like a diner. There was a neon open sign hanging in the window, but it wasn’t lit up. It looked like it hadn’t been working for a while, either. I had half a mind to assume the place was abandoned. Regardless, I approached the peeling yellow door and knocked. There was silence on the other end; I couldn’t even hear music or the clanking of plates or anything you’d expect to hear from a diner. I looked in the window, and it was completely empty. Surprisingly, it seemed very clean and tidy inside. The booth right by the window was a baby blue tone, and the tile floor had yellow-and-white checkers.
The lack of people inside or lights on told me the diner must be closed. Looking around, I couldn’t see a sign of their business hours, either. Maybe it’s a local secret or something, I wasn’t sure. It seems like my best option at this point was to head down to the gas station. They’re usually twenty-four hours, or at least open super early. If I had to guess, it wasn’t even seven in the morning. I looked back to the highway, and the crack along its asphalt felt like it was pointing an arrow for me to continue forwards. I followed it. I grew tired as I walked. I would kill for some water and a nice sandwich right now. The gas station ahead started to look less like a gas station and more like heaven’s gates the longer I went on. I needed to distract myself; I needed something other than the ache in my feet and the soreness in my arms to focus my mind on. Each of the gravel roads I passed surprisingly had residential street signs on each of them. I found out the highway I was on was Highway 138, which was extremely helpful. I read off each of the residential street names out loud as I walked past:
“Henry Way.” It felt like needles in my throat to speak, but the more I spoke, the better it got.
“Deanwood Road.”
“Jacksonyard Street.”
I was almost surprised by the number of roads there was. Most of them didn’t even have an official green government sign like you see anywhere else, but handmade wooden ones painted with black paint. I passed one named “Kellyhind Road” that had its own landscaping around it; one of the only trees around me and flowers surrounding it that looked like goldenrod. Goldenrod was always one of my favorite flowers. I remember walking down a gravel road just like these ones and picking the wildflowers with my father in order to make a bouquet to take home to my mother. Occasionally, we’d even stumble upon a full-grown sunflower. We considered it a flower jackpot. My father would excitedly pull out his pocket knife and cut it down for me, and I’d hold it close to my chest with a wide grin. My mother’s favorite flower is sunflowers.
I continued calling out the street names:
“Dargonwagon Street.”
“Darwin Road.” Darwin had a memorial for James Darwin found at its post. The handmade sign replicated a cross.
“Hogwyle Way.”
“Pinemiles Road.”
I froze.
Pinemiles?
Reading my surname on a delicately made street sign sent a sense of urgency up my spine. My body tensed up as I looked it over again and again to see if I could have read the sign wrong or mistook one of the letters. The sign had three handprints on its post, all in blue. One hand was bigger than the rest with wider fingers. The other was more delicate with long, slim fingers. The last one was a fraction of the size as the others with fat, sausage fingers. I recalled dipping my entire hand in a bucket full of house paint and smashing my hand against this road sign. I remember the paint splatters it left behind that were still visible on the signpost.
I remembered, now. I know where I am.
I began sprinting down the road, remembering my purpose. This is the home my mother took me from. It was my grandfather’s homestead that he graciously passed onto my father after he met my mother, and they had me. I could see the chickens visibly in my head as I chased them around our fields. I remembered my father’s happy eyes as he chased me, too. They were brown and looked like honey in the sun, just like mine. I remember the way he would let me sit on his shoulders as he forked hay to our one cow, Nancy, which my mother named. I remember plugging my nose the entire time as Nancy always smelt like cow dun, no matter how many times we cleaned her and the stable. I remember my father helping my mom with dinner. I remember the taste of plates full of fresh eggs and fresh milk with toast and strawberry jam in the mornings. I remember the smell of freshly cut grass as my dad mowed down our front lawn. I remember the sound of a mourning dove calling from my window to wake me. I remember the sky full of stars at night, glistening and winking at me as I stared through my window. I remember my father’s voice reading me “The Giving Tree” as I stared out my window. I remember the gentle feeling of his lips on my forehead. I remember the warmth of my blanket as he tucked me in.
My dad. I remember my dad. Tears flowed from my eyes as I ran to him – as I ran to our home and remembered the night prior and the conversation that led me here. My mother had just got home from a night at the coffee shop. I was cooking pancakes for dinner, and she plopped down on the couch silently. We stayed silent as she turned the TV on; I know how much she values silence after a shift, so I stayed quiet. The sound of a random soap opera and the sizzling of pancakes was all you could hear in our shared apartment until her phone started ringing. She answered: “Hello?”
I heard silence on her end. Looking over at her, a frown spread across her lips and her eyes hardened and stabbed like knives towards the TV.
“Derrick, I told you not to call me. You call her.” Her voice was firm and demanding. I turned the stove off and faced her, as Derrick is the name of my father.
“Dad’s calling?” She put her hand up to silence me, then used it to rub the bridge of her nose as she held the phone to her ear.
“Yes …… I see ……. I’m sorry that’s happening to you, but you should have listened to me when I told you to quit that smoking habit of yours …. Yes, I am blaming you. It’s the consequences of your actions, Derrick …. Pass the message along? God, Derrick, let her have peace.”
“What’s wrong?” I grew worried. I could see on my mother’s face she seemed worried, too, despite her serpent tongue.
“I’m hanging up. Call her on her own phone if you want to talk to her … You always want me to deliver bad news, don’t you? … Whatever, bye.” As she flipped her phone closed, we sat in silence for a moment.
“So … What happened?”
“Derrick was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer.” She said it plainly with no remorse as my heart dropped into my feet. I leaned against the counter beside the stove. I felt my stomach curl up and my throat ache as I stood there. My mother stared straight at the TV in her usual silence, then put her head in her hands and sighed.
“The doctors told him he’d be lucky to live past this month. He’s going to call you in a few minutes so you can talk about it more with him.”
“Not even a month?!” I cried out, covering my mouth with my hand and gripping onto my lips. My legs shook; they felt like they would give in.
“Not even a month.” Her voice was melancholy as she confirmed.
“And all he’s going to do is call me?”
“I guess so.”
We sat in silence again, and I spun myself around and continued to make pancakes as the sound of the TV overtook us again. I felt my phone ring in my pocket a few minutes after, just like my mother told me it would. I didn’t answer it. I let my phone ring and ring and ring until it went to voicemail as I flipped an overly brown pancake. Tears fell down my face as I plated it. I heard one sizzle on the pan as it dropped.
When she went to bed that night, I charted my way to Nebraska on a map and hopped into Emily the Speedwagon.
“Alright, Emily. This will be a long, long trip. I trust you to get me to my dad safely, you hear?”
Emily the Speedwagon revved her engine as I started her, groaned, and seemed to comply.
“Good girl. Let’s go.”
————-
I stood at the doorway of my childhood home. It was two stories tall and painted the same blue as the hands on the road sign. The front lawn looked as if it hadn’t been mowed since I left, but the door and patio had a fresh coat of white paint on the front. Beer bottles seemed to be scattered all around the patio, especially near the two metal chairs in front of the living room window. The familiar smell of cow dun permeated my nose, as it always had.
I took a deep, shaking breath as I climbed up the four steps onto the patio. Each one of them creaked as I put my weight onto them.
I knocked.
I waited.
I knocked again: “Dad? It’s River.”
I waited.
I knocked again, faintly.
“Dad? Are you home? Are you still alive?” My voice wavered.
I was only met with the sound of a mourning dove, singing its song on the big oak tree next to the window of my room. I stood there for a moment before my body felt too heavy to bear, and I sunk down and sat on the first two steps of the patio stairs.
My back pocket began to vibrate. I let my phone ring a few times before finding the strength to take it out and open it. I pressed the “accept call” button and pressed the broken screen to my ear.
“River, is that you?! Are you okay?!”
“Yes, mom. I’m not hurt.”
“Oh, thank God. Where are you? I’m coming to pick you up right now.”
“I’m home.”