Lost

I liked the version of this story before I cut it down to 300 words so much better than the competition version that I had to put the long one here. Forgive me.



My husband, Robert has a naturally keen sense of direction. People like that don’t understand people like me. They can’t understand what it’s like not knowing where you are or where you’re going. They don’t know the fear that makes someone leave an hour early if they’re going someplace they’ve never been before. He actually threatened once to drive me out to the middle of nowhere and make me find the way home to ‘teach’ me not to get lost, like that’s all I needed. He doesn’t understand.

My mother is like me. No one trusts either of us on the road. However, moral support count’s for a lot. When I had to venture into the big city full of freeways and construction zones for the first time on my own, she was there for me. Not that it helped.

My kitty, Bob, needed to see a specialist...in downtown Oakland.

“Can’t you do it when I can take you?” Robert asked.

“No. The doctor isn’t there any other time. Mama is coming with me. We’ll be fine.” I wasn’t really that confidant, but was annoyed he didn’t believe in me.

We actually made it there fine. We only turned back once when we missed our exit on the freeway, and figured out quickly when we were going the wrong way on Fruitvale road. So maybe we were only going fifteen miles an hour looking for our turn, but nobody was behind us anyway. Piece of cake.

Going home...well...those interchange signs are really confusing.

“Do we go toward Hayward or Sacramento?” I looked hopefully at my mother.

“Don’t we go toward Vallejo?” She looked as nervous as I felt.

“Okay, if we stay to the right we’ll see the exit when get to it, right?”

“Sounds good.”

We drove, studying the signs. None of them looked right. Soon there were no more exits up ahead. Then came a sign we couldn’t miss. It was huge and yellow, and said, ‘Bay Bridge: bus only lane’.

“That’s this lane?”

A concrete divider blocked our left, I couldn’t move over. No exits, no u-turns, so we were stuck heading into San Francisco in a restricted lane, and without paying the toll.

“Is this lucky, or super illegal?” My voice was shaking.

“Well, three people make a carpool. If anyone asks, we’ll say Bob was sleeping in the back seat.”

The tension was broken. We laughed like idiots, and stumbled home, over an hour later. I watched the mail every day, expecting a ticket or fine any time, but nothing ever came. We promised each other we’d never speak of it, especially not to our husbands. They’d never let us out again.

447 words.