A Song for the Road by Kathleen Basi (classic literature books txt) 📕

way he’d come home with the tiniest little thing—a vanilla Pepsi or a pint of Superman ice cream, something to show he knew exactly what would make her feel loved in that very moment.

She wished she were more like him—exuberant and effusive, generous with affection. But fixing meals and doing dishes and working out meticulous schedules for a busy family and work life were the best she could do.

How he used to laugh about those matrices, which she’d print out and mark with highlighters once a week. “It never lasts past Monday anyway,” he would say. “You might as well make it up on the fly.”

Such a gentle man. So kind and considerate. Except that one glorious morning when she’d seen the passion he kept buried. Felt it in every nerve in her trembling body. In that moment, the one time in her life she’d allowed herself to be vulnerable to her husband, Miriam felt loved from the outermost tip of her hair to the deepest, most secret place in her soul.

It scared her so much, she’d never let him in that deep again.

This was the man whose wildflower petals she carried in this locket. She missed him with an ache that eclipsed the cold, the altitude, and even her hangover. Was Talia right? Had he been unhappy? Had he ever known how much he meant to her? Had he ever, in some deep, dark, unexpressed corner of his soul, resented her? Wondered whether she’d come to him that day in Philadelphia, calculating that he would offer a respectable way out of her predicament?

Surely not. “You saved me,” he said.

She shivered, as if the words had whispered on the cold wind rather than existing only in her memory. Doubt was a cold and lonely thing.

Teo’s locket felt cold in her fingers. The chain swung in the wind, flashing the stark white light at the midpoint of every arc. She didn’t remember taking it off, but there it lay in her clenched fist.

The chain whipped her arm. The wind wanted that pendant. If she flung it away, it would disappear into the great, clear blue. It might fall on late snow or newly exposed rock or be carried on a gust to snag on some twisted, tortured pine gasping for breath at the edge of the tree line. Either way, no one would ever see it again except maybe a marmot. She’d be rid of the reminder. Rid of the burden of guilt she’d been carrying around for the last year.

And yet the locket was all she had left.

“Miriam?”

She turned. Dicey walked slowly toward her, her face white. The altitude must be rough on a pregnant woman. “Is it time?” Miriam asked.

Dicey nodded. “The train is boarding.”

Miriam slipped the chain back over her head and tucked it beneath her blouse, then slipped a hand beneath Dicey’s elbow. “All right,” she said. “Let’s get going.”

“What’s in the locket, anyway?” Dicey asked as they made their way back to the red rail car.

Every mistake I ever made. But Dicey wouldn’t understand.

Miriam shrugged. “Just some dead flowers,” she said.

 36

Saturday, May 7

3:30 PM

Manitou Springs, Colorado

Cog Railway parking lot

THE COIN ICONS ON the app were unresponsive. Miriam tried three times. She checked social media to make sure her photos had posted, but if that were the problem, Talia’s wagging finger .gif would have come up. It just wasn’t working. It was as if the app had seen her choices these past twenty-four hours and passed judgment on her for them.

Beside her, Dicey began coughing so hard, the car shook. Miriam put the phone down and rubbed her back. “Dicey,” she said, when the attack eased at last, “let’s find a quick care clinic.”

“What’s the matter with the app?”

Not even an acknowledgment. Miriam wanted to shake her, but as always she butted up against the thing Dicey never let her forget: Miriam was not her mother.

She stared out the window at the sunlight on the high elevations, debating. Dicey had made clear how much she valued her baby’s life. Surely, if she needed medical attention, she’d say so.

Miriam capitulated. “It’s not working.” She handed over the phone.

Dicey swiped and tapped for a minute or two, pausing only to cough again. “Hmm,” she said. “You know what I think? I think there aren’t any more destinations. She never finished putting in the content.”

The words dropped, leaden, into the quiet car. A gaggle of college-aged girls walked past, talking over each other about the party they were attending tonight. Miriam stared out the windshield at the pines and aspen rising from the shoulders of the mountain. “You’re right,” she said. The words nearly choked her. She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to depend on those glimpses from beyond the grave, precious for their novelty. For a year, she’d had nothing but memories, fading quickly from overuse. The videos let her pretend there were still depths to plumb and discoveries to be made. It gave her children back to her, alive and well, if only for a minute or two.

That was all over now. Miriam thought back to that last video, in which Blaise had been talking about Pikes Peak. He’d been wearing a sweatshirt, and the background had been unfamiliar. Had he recorded it while they were camping, that last night before …?

Miriam put her head down on the steering wheel. It was like losing them all over again.

Dicey rubbed her back. “What do you want to do? Head straight for the coast?”

She should. Whatever was wrong with Dicey, her best bet was to get her to her mother and this all-knowing doctor she kept talking about. Miriam could drop her off and go do what she’d come on this trip to do. Except, when she reached that beach, she would no longer be able to avoid the reality: her family was gone forever.

Grief so heavy ought to come with tears. She had no tears. Only a vast, angry emptiness, ready to rebound on the world as bitterness,