You left for Washington with your mom and it felt like a Greek play. A lot of action took place off stage, actions that were not made for the audience to watch, but only to hear about afterwards. You and your mom returned from Washington a week later and it was like the Greek chorus from a stage drama had to catch your dad up on all the off-stage events.
Chorus: Tell us, O Muse, of that ingenious child who traveled far and wide after she had sacked the town of Spokane.
During the car ride back to Medford, Oregon, your mom grew delirious. That happens after six hours on the road with six more to go. She called your dad while driving, said hello, then handed the phone to you. Your dad struggled to understand what you said without context and with the imperfect sound quality of cellular phones traveling up into space and back again.
You had visited your granny ("gwan-dee") and granddad ("gwan-dad") in Spokane. You met your "cuzzin Zoo-ee" for the first time since she'd learned to walk. You saw your Aunt Beth and Uncle Paul, whom you jokingly refer to as Uncle "Popsicle," and he had shaved so you no longer mistook him for bearded folk singer/songwriters on TV.
There are photos of you in the bathtub with cousin Zoe. You're turned away because Zoe splashed a lot, but you smiled anyway. Cousin Zoe looked like she'd done something wrong.
There are photos of you at an outdoor waterpark, the kind without slides but with fantastical fountain sprays. You're touching a large rock out of reach from the sprinklers.
There are photos of you in your blow-up pools that your mom brought to Spokane. The pools are empty because cousin Zoe had a bandaged hand that couldn't get wet. Uncle Popsicle was adamant. But you smiled anyway, and you and cousin Zoe crawled over the hippo-shaped pool, and slid down the dry slide into the bird-lined pool, and the sun was out.
You brought home two mason jars full of granny's preserves. Your dad eats it by the spoonful like soup. You brought home two of granny's dried-strawberry cookies, your dad's favorite, which he stacked together like Oreos.
And you brought home your mom, exhaustion fully set in, eyes puffy, heart full but roadworn. Your dad never used to pray for anyone's safe return. Not that he didn't want someone's safe return, but he just never thought about it.
This time he prayed every highway be safe, every onramp merger be smooth, every trucker awake with coffee and NoDoz, every vacationer unharried by kids in their backseat, every commuter just fine with seeing out-of-state plates, every song on the radio a wake-up call, and every mile closer to home a reason to keep driving.
