We stop by the local kite shop and purchase a couple kites to fly at one of the beaches down the road that has the best wind. We end up stopping by a village that offers local treats and we take our kites out of the truck from there and head down to the sandy beaches.
Hadley and Matt are upwind from me. I’m holding their kites getting ready to set flight to them at them same time. Matt has a square kite and Hadley a triangle both made of superior fabrics flown off of two lines. I wait for the wind to pick up and then throw them both into the air simultaneously.
The wind catches them, and the two are off to the races. I run back to the kids to watch them from their angles. I quickly realized that Hadley has picked out more of a performance flyer as she dances her kite back and forth while doing an occasional flip. Matt on the other hand is just sitting there with his kite moving nowhere he wants it to but otherwise flying brilliantly.
We stay for an hour then grab some sandwiches from the local diner. We finish our meals together, and then get ready to hit the road.
I have no idea how many miles we’ve put on, but we must have been traveling for two days. The great lakes were huge and circling even one of them took a great amount of time.
We feel like stars as we continue to stop at the picturesque waypoints along the route and snap glamour shots of one another. Matt has a huge smile on his face as his sister sneaks behind him and puts up bunny ears on top of his head. That’s definitely one that’ll be going in the road trip album.
We continue on our journey, singing along together to the classic rock songs that continue to switch as we travel between radio stations. I could have gotten one of those satellite radio upgrades for the truck but I liked the genuine look of the dash and didn’t feel it was a necessary upgrade, although the kids would definitely tell you otherwise. I keep catching them on their phones checking in with their friends in-between songs and stops when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. I had a rule of no cell phones while in the car or on vacation but was letting it slide, at least for now.
It’s been a couple hours now since we last ate at the dinner, and I’m craving something to drink so I pull into the next fast food joint and order a coffee and some fries for all of us. The fries are piping hot, and I can’t eat them yet but those two don’t mind, actually preferring the scolding grease.
At the next stop the fries are cold. I finally start to eat them but Hadley and Matt call it quits with what they have left and step out of the car with the rest of them. Being by the beach the whole drive seagulls are in abundance and it’s no exception here. Matt and Hadley start by luring the birds in by tossing a french fry or two on the ground and are slowly working the birds closer but they are smart and cautious only getting within about five feet and refusing to get any closer.
Hadley is waving one of her fries above her head to taunt the birds and tease them, but out of nowhere a seagull swoops down and plucks the fry from her outstretched hand.
Matt thinks this is crazy awesome and tries the same thing. It takes a couple of minutes but sure enough a seagull swoops down and plucks the fry from his fingers. The kids are crazed about their new feeding discovery and continue to feed the birds. Wanting to remember this moment I take out my phone and begin to record the two of them and their antics.
It takes about ten minutes for the two of them to run out of their fries and me being no longer hungry happily hand them the rest of mine so that I can continue filming. Once the fries are gone I turn off the phone and we all climb back in to continue the truck, a little sad it had to come to an end.
Hadley is hanging out the window trying to get the best picture of the setting sun as she can. We wind through the road as she tries to get the best angle. Every now and then I’m driving into the sun and can’t see a damn thing. I tell Hadley to get in the car and put her seatbelt on. She snaps one more shot then climbs back in and clicks in.
We have about another forty miles of road in front of us before we make it to our destination and call it a night. One of Matt’s favorites comes on the radio, and I turn it up for him so we can jam out.
I look up from the radio to find myself on the wrong side of the road with a truck heading straight for us.
“DAD!” Hadley screams but it’s too late. I pull a hard right and just about clear the truck when it clips the back quarter panel. The truck is spun to the other side and I lose control of the vehicle. I slam on my breaks to no avail as we are sliding sideways towards the guard rail.
“HOLD ON,” I yell just as we hit and flip over the rail. We take a full flip and a half before landing on the roof in the waters below. Unbracing myself I unclick my seatbelt and fall to the roof beneath me. It takes a moment to adjust myself to the odd position and I see Hadley as she unclips her belt and is set free. I turn to Matt but he’s knocked out. The water is starting to come in fast now. I look back at Hadley as she rolls down her window and swims out. The entire cab is under the water now.
I turn to Matt and go to unclip his seatbelt, it’s jammed. I search the glove compartment for a knife or something to cut the belt with but can’t find anything in the clouded waters. I yank and jerk on Matt’s seat belt then attempt to bite it free. Running out of air my reflexes gasp, and I take in some water to the lungs. I can feel myself starting to black out as I am pulled from the vehicle.
Hitting the surface Hadley is holding onto me and dragging me to the beach. I look up to see the man from the truck running into the water to help.
“My brother’s still in the truck,” Hadley yells to him.
I see the man dive into the waters, and I drag myself onto shore with Hadley’s help. Looking back at the bubble coming up from the truck my gag reflexes are triggered and I puke out everything from my stomach and lungs. The man from the truck pops up momentarily before diving back down. Surely he’ll get him out soon. Again he resurfaces with nothing and begins to slowly swim back in our direction. I regain just enough strength to hold Hadley half to death and scream.
My screams wake Hadley, and she is soon on my bed trying to wake me up. I scream again and gasp for breath as I come to in the hotel. Hadley coos to me and tells me everything is okay. There’s a knock on the door. Hadley answers and it’s the motel’s night manager. Hadley reassures her that everything is okay and then closes the door and comes back to the bed. I check my phone and it’s four in the morning.
Hadley asks what happened and I describe her my dream in every detail. She holds me and then says, “That’s it. We’re going.”
“Going where?” I ask.
“To go get Matt,” she says. I nod to her in agreement and pull myself out of bed in a cold sweat.
“I need to take a shower first and wake my ass up,” I tell her.
“That’s fine, I need to make a phone call anyway,” she says. I walk into the bathroom and turn the shower on as Hadley searches the room for her phone.
I make sure the water is cold, needing to put a little shock to the system to get going. I’ve been getting up earlier with Hadley, but I’m exhausted as all hell right now. Eventually my heart rate gets going, and I turn off the water and get dressed.
When I come out Hadley already had the car packed and has made the two cups of complimentary coffee for us.
I take the coffee and head out the door with her to the car. The sun isn’t anywhere near up yet, and I turn on the headlights as we pull out. We take a detour through the next town and pick up the highway to head east towards Delaware and Matt.
We drive all morning and into the afternoon. We grab some drive through around two in the afternoon and have just a hundred eighty miles to go. Thoughts race through my mind about what’ll happen when we try and pick up Matt, but Hadley assured me that with her phone call he is ready to go and will be waiting when we get there.
On the way into town Hadley tells me where to go. Apparently Matt was waiting at their grandparent’s house, on their mother’s side.
My pulse quickens as we get closer going
through the streets of the town. I start to ignore the stop signs and Hadley gets me recentered. Paying attention now she points out to a house on the right, and I pull over. It looks like a mini-mansion. He must have been doing okay if he was staying here. Why would he want to leave now?
Not wanting a confrontation with their grandparents I wait in the car as Hadley gets out and heads up the walkway.
Hadley rings the bell, and the door opens and she disappears inside. I wait for like ever, starting to wonder if she’ll ever come back out to me or if it was just a ruse to get me to take her back.
Another ten minutes pass, and the door reopens. Hadley steps outside and with her is Matt. The sun is just right to make Matt gleam in the sun, and I step out of the car. I can’t help but be covered in tears as the two of them approach. I walk up to them and silently give Matt the biggest hug a father ever could.
Nothing is said as we pack up into the car and hit the road. The silence is deafening, but I finally got them both back. Now we headed back west and home.
I feared nothing anymore except losing them again. I can’t tell you how long we drove, but Hadley fell asleep after about an hour and I drove through the night, stopping only for gas and caffeine along the way.
When she woke up I said we had about four hours left until we got back into town. I had called Ed and Vikki on the phone while they rested and let them know a place to meet up when we returned.
Hadley took the coffee I had gotten for her two hours ago and began to drink it to wake back up. Matt was still just resting.
We continued on until we were about twenty minutes from town when Hadley asked me to pull over. I had to wait for the last rest stop just before town to pull over, but did so as she seemed serious.
Pulling into the rest stop we got out to stretch our legs, and I lit a cigarette as Hadley came to my side of the car.
“There’s something I want to show you,” she tells me. Hadley pulls back and parts her purple and red hair and reveals a four inch scar on her skull.
Figuring what had happened I begin to cry again then go to hold her. Hadley accepts my embrace for a minute and then pulls away.
“There’s more,” she begins to say.
Hadley starts going into detail about their mother and all the horrible things she had done to her. Hadley was holding back this story when we last talked about these things when we were down by the river, but now that we were all together again she felt it was time.
Hadley goes into great detail about the physical abuse her mother was doing and how she had been reporting it recently to her counselor at school. The school counselor was shocked by the details and had called social services which followed up with a home investigation. Everyone acted like everything was okay when they were there, but when Hadley was at school she was secretly showing them the bruises her mother was leaving on her.
Time was coming short for their mom and she was about to snap as the two year wait for court was coming up and Hadley now knew that her mother knew he would be coming for them and would probably end up winning them back with the ongoing abuse at home.
A month ago Hadley’s mom hit her breaking point when Matt stood up to her for the first time in years trying to defend his sister. Their mom responded by waiting for Matt to take his routine nightly shower while she ironed clothes. When Matt was in the shower their mom took it upon herself to sneak into the bathroom where Matt was at and surprised him by throwing back the shower curtain and striking him in the head with the clothes iron. This made Matt pass out and thud onto the bottom of the tub prompting Hadley to go and see what was happening.
When she looked into the bathroom her mother was filling up the bathtub while trying to hold Matt’s limp passed out body under the water. Hadley had run inside the bathroom and tackled her mother. She responded by picking up the iron again and striking Hadley in the head this time. Hadley held onto consciousness though and tried to run out of the bathroom but slipped on the water on the floor and landed on the tile knocking the wind out of her lungs.
Hadley’s mom grabbed for her but Hadley managed to kick her off and pull herself out of the bathroom by grabbing onto the carpet outside the door. She slammed the door behind her and Hadley ran to the neighbors house. Unable to scream she banged on the door until they opened to her bloody head.
The neighbors immediately called the cops, and it wasn’t even minutes later that the sirens could be heard down the street. The cops got out of their vehicle and were running across the lawn when the shot rang out.
Hadley’s mom could not live with what she had done and face losing her kids and going to jail so it was discovered that the single shot was her taking her own life by her bedroom closet. The cops drew their guns and entered the house. What they found was a horrid scene. Before they could get there Hadley’s mother had managed to drown Matt’s unconscious body in the tub before the police arrived.
I look again to Hadley’s scar masked by her red and purple hair. Then looking back to the ’67 I looked at Matt. He sat there peacefully in his urn which was kept at their grandparent’s house until I was ready to go back for him.
Hadley continued her story about being taken to the hospital and being treated for a concussion for several days before being taken by social services and placed into foster care as they could not rule out a hereditary mental health issue with her grandparents.
The Delaware authorities contacted our local social services and they began their investigation into me before bringing Hadley as far away from the memories of her mother as possible and into the hands of someone who truly loved her and would look after her forever.
Crying uncontrollably Hadley had come back over and we embraced each other and mourned the loss of Matt. It took an hour to recover ourselves before we could get back into the car and continue on.
Having already called Vikki and Ed they knew right where to meet us. We headed to the edge of town to where my parents rest. They had contacted everyone I knew and all were there waiting for Matt’s return home.
Somberly we pull into the graveyard and head to the back corner where everyone was waiting. The undertaker was notified and the hole was dug. Walking over with Matt in hand I look at the gravestone adorned with two angels holding up their arms as if to lift him up to heaven.
We all stand around in silence as Hadley recalls the tale of her brother growing up. How he always excelled at everything he did and outshined her in everything. How he wanted so badly to stop his sister’s violence but never had the courage to do so until he was a man and when he did it was all too short lived. Hadley finished the story of his life and I recounted all my memories and dreams I had of him from everyone.
We were all already crying but when I got into detail about his marriage to Clara and of the child they had together I just fell apart and my voice went blank. Vikki came over to me now and gave me a huge hug, followed by Ed and then the rest of the people there all giving me and Hadley hugs and condolences for our loss.
In the end me and Hadley were left there with the undertaker but it didn’t feel right to put him into the ground. We had a short discussion and agreed, leaving the hole empty we returned home with Matt.
Matt went into his room and Hadley removed all her gifts, taking them up to her room for a later time and came back down. We sit down together in the middle of the room and begin with the presents from when Matt first left.
Hadley smiles with each one and pretends to be Matt playing with them. We are up all night opening the presents in front of Matt until we tire and go to sleep.
No nightmares ever come to me again. Matt was placed into the living room where he could watch over us and grow old together and every year Hadley was there we would still go out and pick out a present for him for his birthday and Christmas and open it in front of him.
Matt’s room and collection of gifts would eventually turn into Hadley’s son playroom whom she named after her brother. Matt’s spirit would live and play through him and en
joy all the things in life that were always intended for him.
Whenever I felt that emptiness I would go back and remember the tales that Hadley told that night, and I would hold onto one of his belongings and go back to him as I close my eyes and dream.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Petoski was born in the United States in 1985. He has four children, which are his world.
In high school Andrew had failed English on multiple occasions, but no one could halt him from expressing himself through words.
Andrew joined the service when he was twenty and traveled all over the United States during his seven year career.
He exited the military to care for his family after extenuating circumstances and soon realized his passion for writing and no one has been able to stop him since.
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