Colorado
The things that we love tell us what we are.
—Thomas Aquinas
Blaise’s intro to Pikes Peak
Yeah, I know. We’ve been keeping you off the beaten path till now. But, I mean—Pikes Peak! You can’t skip that on any road trip across America. You remember that trip we took to Colorado with the gifted program in middle school? This was my favorite part. If the weather’s clear, from the top you can see five states. So no matter what coin flips you take, you’ll cross Colorado Springs. Anyway, I only have two words for you: high-altitude donuts.
(Talia’s voice, sotto voce): That’s three words, numb nuts!
29
Thursday, May 5
Pawnee National Grasslands, eastern Colorado
THE SIMPLEST ROUTE TO Colorado Springs—not the shortest, but Miriam was sick of impersonal interstate highways—took them on a straight shot south, pretty much forever, on US 71. Miriam drove in solitude, Dicey’s long night finally having caught up to her. The younger woman slept in the passenger’s seat, using her backpack for a pillow, leaving Miriam to ponder the unexpected insight she’d just gained into her family.
What if their most annoying characteristics were actually how they expressed love?
Last spring, her family had swept in, picking up the burden she didn’t know she couldn’t carry. Mom stayed for months. Brad flew up to San Francisco to identify the bodies and bring them back to Atlanta. Jo paid the funeral expenses and never said a word. Miriam didn’t even know until months later, when she called the funeral home because she realized she’d never received a bill.
Miriam hated owing Jo. She wanted desperately to repay her, but she couldn’t, so she never said anything. Neither did Jo. For a year, the knowledge of the debt had weighed on her heart alongside everything else, smarting, irritating her. She wished she’d thought of it a few hours ago. For the first time, she felt ready to thank rather than berate her sister.
She woke Dicey when she pulled off for gas at the I-80 interchange. The guy smoking a cigarette outside the gas station set the younger woman to coughing like Miriam hadn’t seen in days. When she finally recovered, Dicey glowered and muttered about people disrespecting the gift of their lungs.
Miriam texted her family and Becky: 20 mi to the CO border. A round of thumbs-up emojis followed in short order.
Miriam had been counting on Dicey’s company now that she’d had a nap, but Dicey went right back to sleep. Miriam looked over periodically, noting uneasily the pallor of her companion’s face and the increasing persistence of the cough.
But her worry about Dicey soon gave way to another, more immediate concern. A couple dozen miles into Colorado, Miriam began to eye the hunkering clouds with trepidation. The wind seemed determined to blow her right off the highway. She checked her phone, but the signal strength wasn’t sufficient to bring up her weather app. The sky grew darker by the moment. Then came the rain: first a drizzle, then a steady downpour and finally a deluge, given structure by lightning the likes of which she’d never seen. She slowed down.
At four thirty in the afternoon, the world outside the window looked like twilight. Miriam crept down the highway, hoping to spot a place to get under cover, but she could see nothing. No homes, no businesses, no gas stations, no trees. Just endless miles of prairie grass whipping in the frenzied storm. Come to think of it, she hadn’t passed a business in … had she seen one since crossing the Colorado border?
A gust of wind pushed the Hyundai into the wrong lane; Miriam jerked it back. She cast her mind backward, searching for some explanation for the isolation, and landed on a brown sign she’d read without processing, preoccupied by the giant wind turbines behind it, not far south of the state line: “Pawnee National Grassland.”
National grassland. Did that mean a nature preserve? The kind with no development at all?
And then, both phones erupted in an emergency alert.
Dicey woke with a start, cursing. “What is it? What happened?”
“I don’t know. Check your phone.”
Dicey scanned the horizon. The sky looked like Dr. Frankenstein’s lab gone wild. “Miriam, that is a shitload of lightning.”
The car bucked again. “I know.” Miriam sounded calmer than she felt. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Dicey cursed again. “Tornado warning.”
“How close?”
“I don’t know, I’m trying to find out—just wait a minute! I’ve only got one bar.”
Miriam gripped the steering wheel, knowing nothing she said could make the insufficient connection move faster.
“The map won’t load,” Dicey said. “I don’t know where we are!” She leaned forward and peered into the deepening gloom.
The seconds ticked by. Miriam’s fingers ached from gripping the steering wheel so hard, repeatedly wresting back control of the car. The wind was like a living thing, howling against the windows. The gloom settled around them. And just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.
“Miriam …” Dicey’s voice sounded squeaky. She pointed.
“I see it!” The twister looked like a narrow Play-Doh worm flipping around while God rolled it through the sky. It roared toward them in the midst of a huge debris field. Maybe Miriam was imagining things, but it sure looked like it was getting fatter by the moment.
The prairie stretched, rolling and unbroken, to every side. No ditches to hide in, no buildings to shelter in.
“Don’t freak out, don’t freak out,” Miriam whispered.
Dicey grabbed the overhead handlebar as the car bucked again. “Are you kidding? This is exactly the time to freak out!”
“There.” Miriam pointed. “That sign up there. What’s it say?”
A yellow triangle flashed past. “Narrow bridge. Narrow bridge!” Dicey said. “We can hide under the bridge!”
Miriam veered onto the shoulder.
The road cut through a low ridge, too small to provide any real protection. They got out of the car; the rain stung as Miriam half dragged, half carried Dicey down the grassy slope at the edge of the road. Her locket slapped her collarbone with every step.
It wasn’t much of a bridge—just a short deck enclosed by guardrails crossing a shallow ditch gouged into the prairie by runoff. But at least it blocked the rain. Mostly, at least.
The wind, though, was unstoppable. Dust and debris slapped Miriam in the face. The women huddled up into the narrow angle where the sloping creek bank met concrete. Miriam huddled behind Dicey, putting protective arms around her companion, as if she could possibly ward off a twister. Dicey clutched her arms. Her metal bracelet bit into Miriam’s forearm.
The younger woman was mumbling; it took Miriam a minute to recognize the Lord’s Prayer. The gut shot went clear through her: it hadn’t even occurred to her to pray. Just how much of herself would she lose before this was over?
If she died in the next five minutes, Mom might never know what happened to her.
And what about Dicey, whom she’d dragged along for this ride into hell? Dicey had a mother too. And an unborn child!
Miriam didn’t want to die. She wanted to live. Not just exist, mummified in her guilt and regret and loss. But live. Like Dicey, grabbing life by the horns. Like Becky, indispensable to everyone around her.
Please, Miriam whispered silently. I’ll do anything. I’ll talk to Mom. I’ll tell Gus—somehow. I’ll even be nice to Jo! Just keep us alive.
The tornado roared closer, the wind at its edges skittering up and down in pitch like a banshee. Miriam closed her eyes and added her voice to that of the girl trembling in her arms.
30
WHEN THE STORM PASSED and the two women emerged, shaking and battered by debris, from their hiding place, they found the darkness complete. They struggled up the wet embankment in the rain. Dicey got back in the car, but Miriam wanted to check the vehicle’s condition before they went on. She walked around it, using her phone as a flashlight. The front w
indshield was cracked, the driver’s side back window shattered altogether. The instrument cases in the back seat were littered with glass, but mercifully it seemed to have missed the front seats. Hailstones covered the rear floor, though. And she had no intention of picking them out. Not with broken glass all over everything.
The outside of the car was pockmarked, the finish rough after being sandblasted by dust.
Becky was going to kill her.
She got in and closed the door. With the back window broken, it wasn’t exactly cozy, but it got her out of the rain. “Let’s go find a service station,” she said.
“Let’s hope the car starts.”
“It’ll start.”
Dicey raised her eyebrows, cradling her abdomen protectively. “Just sayin’.”
Miriam had always hated that phrase, but she pinched her annoyance beneath her lips and started the car. “See?”
But the moment she pulled forward, she knew something was wrong. The motion felt jerky and uneven. She shut it off again before stepping back into the rain.
She’d missed the flat front tire. A shattered glass bottle lay right behind it. She hadn’t even felt the car go over it when she pulled off the road.
Nothing to be done about it now. Miriam popped the trunk and retrieved the tent and the sleeping bag. “Here, spread this out,” she told Dicey, handing her the sleeping bag. Then, she started rigging the tent cover around the edges of the back door.
“What are you doing?” Dicey asked.
“We have a flat.”
“Don’t we have a spare?”
“I imagine we have a donut. But it’s buried under all our stuff, and it’s raining, and it’s dark.”
Dicey pulled her phone out. “I have no signal.” She sounded scared. “Do you?”
Miriam got into the car and closed the door. “No,” she said, anxiety gnawing her insides. She’d just promised Jo to keep in touch, and she couldn’t. Jo would freak. Mom would freak.
Well, there was not a thing she could do about it now. She relaxed her throat to keep her tone even. “We’ll just have to wait for daylight.”
“How can you be so calm?” Dicey’s voice, normally so dusky, was almost sopranino.
Miriam caught her hand. “Did I tell you my parents worked on car assembly lines?” she said. “My dad knew everything about cars. We weren’t allowed to drive until we knew the basics. If I can change the oil, I can certainly change a tire.”
“Really?”
“Really. I just need daylight and a break in the rain. It’s going to be okay.”
Dicey relaxed. “I hope I get to be half as cool as you before I die.”
Miriam laughed. “I thought we’d already established that you’re way cooler than me.”
She spread the sleeping bag over the two of them as best she could. Dicey moved restlessly, this way and that, coughing and spitting.
“You all right?” Miriam asked.
“My back hurts.”
“Turn the other way. I’ll rub it for you.”
Dicey’s taut posture relaxed as Miriam kneaded her lower back. It was a terrible angle, and Miriam’s thumbs started to hurt, but she kept at it. The wind settled to a low whoosh.
“Deandra,” Dicey said quietly.
Miriam paused. “What?”
“Baby Girl’s name. I think, at least.”
Miriam’s breath caught. For the first time, Dicey had let down her armor, here in this deep darkness. “What’s it mean?” she asked in a whisper, afraid to shatter the moment.
“Divine protector.”
“That’s a good meaning.”
“I wanted a strong name for her.”
“You did good.”
Dicey shifted again. Momentarily, Miriam felt the younger woman’s hand brush against hers. She clasped it.
The rain continued to patter on the roof of the car. Dicey’s breathing slowed; Miriam’s insides relaxed.
Teo felt very close in this moment. One snowy night in Philly, she’d fallen asleep on his lap as he read from “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” When she awoke, the house was quiet, though the wind blew outside and snow hissed against the windowpane. Teo was sitting awake, still stroking her arm, watching the fire crackle. She’d felt safe. Protected.
Tonight it was her turn. Miriam closed her eyes and drifted, counting the breaths between each of her companion’s coughs. Something had changed between her and Dicey just now, and Miriam along with it. She knew she wouldn’t sleep much tonight. She was on duty.
* * *
In the morning, they broke out the last of the snacks Miriam had bought in Cincinnati. They drank Dicey’s water bottles dry before either of them felt satisfied. Dicey looked tired and drawn, and her cough seemed worse. Miriam fretted, wondering if she should broach the topic again, but what good would it do? It wasn’t like there was a quick care clinic nearby.
She unloaded the trunk and excavated the donut. “Miriam Tedesco, rock star,” said Dicey as the first lug nut came loose. Miriam glanced up and saw her recording. “Seriously, Dicey,” she said, laughing.
The next lug nut wouldn’t budge. She skipped it in favor of starting the remaining ones, then returned, but it proved impervious to the force of the small wrench. She needed a longer lever, but rack her brain though she might, she couldn’t think of anything in the car that would work.
She put her body into it, but her shoes slipped in the gravelly mud and she slid partway down the berm at the edge of the road, earning nothing for her trouble except skinned knees and elbows. “Turn that off,” she snapped. What good was all Dad’s training if she didn’t have the tools she needed?
Dicey put her phone away. “So now what?”
Miriam checked her phone again. No signal. She swallowed. All night, she’d kept her cool by thinking in the morning they’d be on their way and back in contact with the world in short order. Being stuck here, literally in the middle of nowhere, was triggering some panic. “I guess we hope somebody comes by.”
They sat in the car. With nothing to drink, Dicey’s cough got progressively worse. The hacking, choking sound rubbed Miriam’s nerves raw.
This could not continue. Dicey needed water.
Miriam opened the door, and a blessed breath of fresh air swirled into the car. “I’m going to start walking,” she said. “Surely there’s got to be something …”
“Miriam!”
She looked up and saw it: an enormous pickup with a tow rig on the back coming toward them. It passed, stopped, turned around, and angled in front of them. A burly, bearded man in plaid button-up, jeans, and boots hopped down. “Morning, ladies,” he said, tipping his hat. “Name’s Buck Gardner. Looks like you could use a tow?”
Dicey burst into tears. Miriam just sagged with relief.
“My wife and I live down the road a little ways. I got a shop, I can get your tire changed for you. Can’t do nothin’ about the window, though. Whereabouts you headed?”
“Colorado Springs.”
“I know a good guy down there. I’ll give him a call here shortly. Toss your gear in the back of the truck there while I get you hooked up.”
Buck hooked the Sonata to his rig, and they got underway. He spent the ten-minute trip regaling them with an overview of the night’s storms, which pretty much beat the crap out of the entire central plains. Miriam couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. Running off into the middle of nowhere without checking the weather.
The cell signal improved as they went; soon enough, her phone started dinging.
Jo: I told you to text us!
Mom: Please call me.
Becky: The Weather Channel talked about bad storms in eastern Colorado. Are you okay?
The tone of the messages escalated from there; she could practically hear the anxiety ratcheting up in their tone as the messages continued.
The missed calls fell off the bottom of the screen. Jo, Gus, Brad, Mom, Gus again, Becky, Simeon. Gus again. Talk about escalatio
n.
Her battery died halfway through formulating a reply; using it for a flashlight had drained the battery. Miriam sighed and slid it into her pocket.
When they reached the ranch house, Buck apologized—“The wife’s away for the weekend”—and opened a box of gas station donuts before heading out to change the tire for them. Dicey nibbled at one without enthusiasm. Miriam ate with more relish, but her anxiety to contact her family was stronger than her hunger. She plugged in her phone and stared at it, listening to the buzz of an air wrench outside while she waited for it to power up. As soon as it did, she sent a group text.
We are okay. Both of us. Scary night in the Pawnee Grassland. Close encounter with twister. But we are ok. Rescued by a gallant rancher. Regrouping to go on to CO Spgs.
It took all of thirty seconds for the replies to start coming in. A cascade of them, covering the spectrum she’d expected, from Jo’s I should never have let you talk me into this to Becky’s effusive emoji-laden statement of support.
She supposed she ought to put something up on the app too. Her choir members and Father Simeon were bound to hear about it; better to control the narrative.
She repurposed the text she’d sent her family and posted it through Talia’s app as Buck walked back into the house. “All set,” he said. “But keep it slow. You shouldn’t drive too far on that donut.”
“Thank you,” Miriam said. “We’ll get on the road shortly and be out of your hair.”
“Oh, you’re no trouble at all.”
“In that case, I could use a shower,” Dicey said. “A really, really long shower, if you don’t mind.”
She pulled her entire suitcase into the bathroom, just as she had the first night in Cincinnati. Miriam smiled and shook her head.
Her phone rang. She glanced down, and her body flashed hot and cold: Gus. Good grief. She’d only put up the status update about a minute ago. He really was stalking her.
Her promise to God the night before seemed rash now. She wasn’t ready for this conversation. When she’d thought her life was ending, confession seemed a no-brainer. But in the light of day, she was right back to Won’t it do more harm than good?
A Song for the Road Page 20