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| >> Static Item >> Short Story >> Relationship >> ID #573959 |   |
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Not Lost Steve glanced over at her in an amused manner. His eyes were smiling, and his hand reached up, and gently squeezing her shoulder. “I’m not lost,” he assured Margaret. “I truly do have a friend hidden among these mountain roads, and there will be hot showers and white wine this evening. Just hang on, honey.” Margaret didn’t bother to reply. Her husband, Steve, had been promising comfort for a week, but so far there'd been very little of it. She sighed loudly. This trip, that had seemed so exciting and carefree in the planning, had grown into a kind of twisty unsureness. Did being together so much always strain a marriage? Margaret leaned her head against the windowpane. The vibration of the road hummed softly in her ear, tickling her forehead. For a moment she closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the wheels, like a galloping horse -- every third beat a repeated thump. Perhaps, Margaret thought, as the melody played in her ear, perhaps it was only yesterday’s fog -- that feeling of isolation -- prison fog she’d dubbed it, recalling the way she'd felt when the rest of the world had been taken from her by the clinging, bland obscurity of it. Her body still ached from the cold dampness of it. She shivered with the memory. Margaret turned slightly in her seat to stare out. If she looked in the window at an angle, she could see the reflection of their Toyota truck as they moved down the road. Even the line of where the camper shell joined with the truck showed in the image. And there at nose height was the racing streak that decorated the side of their truck. Margaret's finger traced the line, watching as it erased the image momentarily. She studied the reflection, trying to see the faces of the passengers, but only the truck had substance traveling along in its parallel plane. Without Steve and herself in the other vehicle, it could not be a doppelganger -- that German term for identical images of people passing. Yet if it were, would the two trucks be bound for the same direction? Would that truck also contain a man and a woman entwined by marriage, a marriage that felt like it was unraveling as surely as a child’s swing with a twisted chain? There was a heavy growth of trees ahead. A canopy of leaves framed the sky, then enclosed it. The sudden darkness was as clinging as the fog of the day before. Margaret shivered and reached over to turn on the heater. “It’s pretty under here, isn’t it?” Steve said, reaching down to push in the cigarette lighter. Margaret studied him as he dug in his pocket for the pipe. His hands appeared overly large and hairy. Awkwardly, his right hand hunted around for the pouch beside him. Margaret held her breath, hoping he’d spill the tobacco as his fingers grasped it, but as usual his luck held. The zipper of the pouch was firmly closed. Margaret studied him as he stuffed his pipe, noting the new gray hairs in his sooty black mane. The lighter expelled its heated metal match. The click of its readiness irritated her. Once more she turned away to watch the visual echo of their truck. The trees flashed by, wrinkling the truck’s outline, thrusting their cinnamon brown trunks in the way. Steve's movement, grabbing and jerking the lighter upwards towards the plastic bowl in his mouth, and then his puffing intakes told her when the tobacco had caught. She felt the seat lurch forward as he bent over to return the lighter. Margaret closed her eyes and listened as he zipped up the pouch. She was back in their house that moment, seeing Steve with the Prince Albert can -- red and gold lettered -- big as a large-size coffee can. Steve had been readying himself for the trip, and tobacco had been the first thing he’d packed -- not clothes, or food, not even his precious easels and paints. The last stand of trees shot by, and the truck was once more out in the sun. The rays pierced the windowpane. Margaret reached out and turned off the heater. Unkinking stiffened bones, she turned her body slightly, and flipped on the radio, finding a song they'd once danced to. When she heard the familiar melody, she looked up to catch Steve's eye. He didn't notice. His thoughts were elsewhere. Margaret caught a glimpse of silver. The grays she’d seen in his hair a moment before had changed startlingly like some portrait painter had taken his finest brush and dabbed the strand shere and there in the precise locations where sunlight would hit them. Steve caught her gaze and smiled. His eyes crinkled up at the sides. They too held inner lights. For a moment it was as if a balled fist had been thrust into Margaret’s stomach. It wasn’t pain she was feeling, but an awareness, as if the glints of silver and the cracked lines around Steve’s eyes were a message. She took a deep breath, exploring the wonder of it. A fragrant whiff of Steve's pipe caressed her with its familiarity. She pushed back against the seat to examine her husband. Her husband was a shaggy man, but he had the kindest face she'd ever seen. And his smile, a smile that began in the corner of his mouth, and slowly, each time when he looked at her, traveled up to his eyes. . . Suddenly Margaret remembered again why she loved her husband. She was glad in that moment to be sitting beside him, watching his sturdy, square hands on the wheel. It was all at once so wonderful to be with him in the relaxed comfort of the truck, she shivered with the joy of it and the newness of her breakthrough understanding. Soon they would be arriving at the friend’s house, and white wine and hot showers would be waiting. But their destination was no longer important. Margaret smiled up at her husband, and he smiled in return. He placed his hand over hers, and they clasped fingers. The sun was soaking up the fog. It would be a sunny, pleasant day, but Margaret no longer cared. The warmth was already inside her.
© Copyright 2002 Shaara (UN: shaara at Writing.Com).
All rights reserved.
Shaara has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |
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