When I Hit the Road

by Nancy J. Cavanaugh

  I went outside the waiting room door and stood in an alcove under the shade of an awning to call Mom. I wasn’t even sure Mom would answer her phone, since when I had talked to her earlier, she had been dashing off to an all-important Make It, Take It meeting.

  I took a few deep breaths and thought of the time in first grade when I had slept over at a friend’s house for the first time, and because I’d gotten homesick, I called Mom. I remembered how as soon as I heard Mom’s voice, I’d started to cry. I hoped that I wouldn’t burst into tears that same way today, I’d never convince Mom that Gram was okay if I started the phone call by blubbering hysterically like a six-year-old.

  I swiped my phone screen, pressed Mom’s number, and waited.

  “Hey, Samantha!”

  It was Dad.

  I wondered if in all my stress, I’d called Dad by mistake.

  “Dad?” I asked.

  “Yep, it’s me,” he said.

  “I was trying to call Mom. Did I call you by mistake?”

  Let me pause a minute here. Remember how I told you that I wasn’t going to keep writing “You’re never going to believe what happened next?”

  Well, if I was still writing things like that, right now, I’d write “You’re never going to believe what happened next,” but I’d write it like this: “YOU’RE NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

  Let me continue.

  “No, I’ve got Mom’s phone because, well, because, well… I’ll start by saying that Mom’s okay. I’m with her, and basically the whole thing was a false alarm.”

  What was Dad talking about?

  “They thought it was a heart attack, so she’s in the ER—”

  “WHAT?!” I shrieked.

  And then I blubbered in hyperhysteria.

  Dad tried to calm me down.

  And through the hysteria, I heard Dad continue telling me about Mom.

  “But her heart is fine… They’ve done lots of tests… They didn’t find anything.”

  But all I could think was if that was true, why was Mom in the hospital?

  Dad finished by saying that the doctor decided that Mom had had an anxiety attack.

  Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

  Anxiety attack?!

  I was the one who should be having an anxiety attack.

  In fact, at that moment, I thought I might actually be having one.

  Dad told me that he had just walked outside the emergency room so that he could call me while the nurses finished their release paperwork with Mom.

  At that moment, I wished more than anything in the world that I wasn’t in Florida so that I could be at the hospital with Mom and Dad right now.

  “Are Tori and Annalise there?”

  “No, I haven’t even talked to them yet. Tori’s at an all-day tournament, and Annalise had a lesson and then a double rehearsal. Once I knew Mom was okay, I just decided I’d talk to them both tonight at home. No reason to worry them when there’s really nothing to worry about.”

  Well, again, I’m sure you’re thinking what I’m thinking. The only way there’d be nothing to worry about was if when I called Mom, she had answered her phone instead of Dad. Or better yet, if Mom hadn’t answered at all because she was still busy in one of her important, epically long meetings.

  Dad told me that the doctor recommended that Mom stop working so many long hours, because that was likely where all the stress was coming from. And that stress probably caused the anxiety attack. The doctor suggested that Mom take some time to rest and relax, but other than that, he said, Mom was fine.

  “So, how’s it going down there?” Dad asked sounding nonchalant as he changed the subject.

  Oh, yeah.

  Great question.

  How are things going down here?

  Well, let’s see, I just stepped outside to call Mom to tell her about Gram. But instead of being able to do that, and possibly get a little encouragement from her to help me face the many obstacles I’ve been encountering, I find out that Mom is so stressed out about her life that she wound up in the hospital.

  I didn’t see how telling Dad about Gram was going to help the situation, so I said, “Everything’s fine.”

  I’m sure you’d agree that I didn’t really have a choice but to elaborate on Mimi’s “stretching of the truth” by eliminating the details of our most current plight. I couldn’t risk passing off any of my anxiety to Dad, or he might wind up in the hospital next.

  I couldn’t bear it if something was wrong with Gram, Mom, and Dad.

  Dad said he was glad that everything was fine, and then he said Gram was lucky to have me down in Florida with her.

  All I could think was that Gram would’ve been luckier if someone more responsible than me were down here with her.

  Dad said that Mom had told him all about the whole widow’s bucket list karaoke road trip, so he asked me how everything was going with that.

  I told him that so far it had been a real adventure.

  I figured that at least that response wasn’t a lie.

  “Can’t wait to hear all about it when you get home,” Dad said. “I know Mom’ll want to hear every last detail.”

  When I asked if I could talk to Mom, he told me that the nurses were keeping her busy filling out forms.

  “But I’ll be sure she calls you tomorrow,” Dad said.

  Then he told me that it was probably best not to tell Gram about Mom.

  “No reason to cause concern when there’s no reason for it.”

  Oh, no, of course not, I thought to myself. (I’m sure I don’t have to mention how sarcastically I said that to myself.)

  But then, when Dad told me he loved me, and that Mom did too, I realized that, under certain circumstances, even Dad’s voice had the power to melt me into a puddle of tears the way Mom’s had during that first-grade sleepover phone call. I took a super deep breath, held it a second, and let it seep out slowly so that not one single piece of the lump in my throat leaked out with it.

  Dad told me one last time not to worry, and then he ended the call.

  I stood staring at my phone screen thinking about how impossible it was going to be to not worry about Mom.

  Because of all the snarky and sarcastic things I’d said to her in the last couple weeks, it was inconceivable that I would ever feel like anything other than the King Kong of slugs. I had to face the fact that I had acted like the ugliest, most revolting, nastiest, most hideous slug that had ever slimed its way across the floor.

  I’m writing all this while I sit in the urgent care center waiting room, hoping that very soon someone will come and tell us some more reassuring news about Gram or that maybe even Gram herself will walk out into the waiting room looking even better than she had looked on the day Mom and I arrived in Florida and she had surprised us with her new Mustang.

  Mimi’s over in the corner of the waiting room with her eyes closed and her lips moving silently.

  I know it’s important to talk to God in times like this, especially for people like Mimi, and it’s not that I don’t appreciate her prayers, but I could kind of use someone to talk to.

  I can’t talk to Brandon, because ever since he found a Wiffle ball in the waiting room’s toy bin, he’s been tossing it up in the air with his left hand while pacing back and forth across the room.

  I’m thankful my letters to you are helping me sort of feel like I have someone to confide in, because without them, I wouldn’t have any way to vent all the consternation and culpability swirling around inside me right now.

  I was already wondering if Gram’s collapsing was my fault.

  And now I’m wondering if Mom’s stress wasn’t only because of work.

  Was it partly because of me?

  Was it all because of me?

  All the things
we’ve gone through so far on this trip feel like big rocks rolling down a hill straight for me. In order to survive, I’ve had to keep jumping out of the way.

  But this new stuff with Gram and Mom isn’t just rocks rolling down a hill; this new stuff is like boulders barreling down a mountain like they’ve been shot out of a cannon.

  And the tight feeling in my chest that’s squeezing my hammering heart makes me feel like those boulders are flattening me worse than Gram’s Mustang would’ve flattened that turtle if Mimi hadn’t yelled, “Stop!”

  Love,

  Me

  Dear Me,

  After a long trip to the urgent care center’s waiting room bathroom, where I splashed water on my face so that no one could tell that I’d been crying, I came back to find Gram sitting out in the waiting room next to Mimi.

  And when I saw Mimi’s twig-like fingers holding on to Gram’s forearm, I worried that Gram had come out and told Mimi that the doctor had told her something was seriously wrong with her, but then I heard Mimi say, “You shouldn’t feel down about it, Madge. At least you tried.”

  It didn’t sound like they were talking about Gram’s health, and my relief allowed me to let go of a microscopic amount of the tightness in my chest.

  Neither Mimi nor Gram saw me standing at the edge of the waiting room, so I stayed still and listened.

  “But I wasn’t just doing this for me,” Gram said. “I was doing it for Martin too, but it was silly of me to think I could do this without him.”

  And then Gram started to cry, and when she did, a tidal wave of sadness smashed against my heart and cracked it in two like it was a Styrofoam surfboard.

  Through her tears, Gram told Mimi that she didn’t know why she thought doing all this would make her miss Grandpa less. She said she had thought it might help her get over him being gone, but it had actually made her miss him even more.

  Through the tears that made a mess of my just-cleaned face, I watched as Mimi rubbed Gram’s arm and heard her tell Gram, “You’re being too hard on yourself. When I lost Herm, I didn’t know how I’d ever keep going. I just missed him so much, but with time, the Lord comforted me.”

  Mimi told Gram the same would happen for her. It would just take some time.

  “But you probably didn’t act like a darned fool like I’ve been doing,” Gram said.

  “Driving around in a Mustang, traveling all over the state, thinking I could stand up and sing in front of people.”

  “But Madge,” Mimi said as she handed Gram a tissue. “Look at what your adventurous spirit’s done for all of us. This has been the trip of a lifetime! We’ve crammed more chaos, catastrophe, laughter, and fun into three days than I’d ever thought possible.”

  Gram blew her nose and laughed.

  Now that tidal wave inside me swirled around, mixing my sadness with sentimental feelings I’d never ever felt before.

  “Who else can say they took a trip through the back roads of Florida, landed in a ditch, slept in a church, donated all their clothes to a rummage sale, slept in a ramshackle cabin in the middle of a flash flood, and survived the worst public restroom since indoor plumbing was invented and lived to tell about it?” asked Mimi.

  Gram’s shoulders shook as her tears turned into unstoppable, contagious laughter.

  Mimi leaned back and laughed too. Finally, she put her hand on her skinny stomach, sighed, and said, “And I don’t know about you, but the time I’ve gotten to spend with Brandy and getting to know Sam has been some of the best moments of my entire life, and when you’re as old as the two of us, that’s saying a lot.”

  Now the tidal wave wasn’t just inside me, it came gushing out in a waterfall/explosion/flash flood of sobs and tears.

  “Oh, I know,” Gram said, her laughter turning into sobs again. “It’s just been so darn fun being with those kids, hasn’t it?”

  “Nothing but a blessing in the middle of a mountain of mayhem,” Mimi said, laughing and crying all at the same time.

  By this time, through my flooded waterfall of emotion, I was hiccupping loudly, so Gram and Mimi noticed me standing at the edge of the waiting room. They put out their arms and called me over to them. And the three of us sat there blubbering and laughing while smearing sloppy tears all over our faces.

  Brandon had been outside calling home, and when he came back in and saw the three of us huddled together in a heap of tears, I think he thought Gram might be dying.

  Though it wasn’t a nice thing to do, the look of distress on his face made Gram, Mimi, and I crack up in such a fit of laughter that Brandon couldn’t tell if we were laughing or crying, so he didn’t know what to do.

  Finally, when the three of us caught our breath enough to talk, we assured him that everything was okay.

  I’m writing this letter to keep you up to date while Gram is filling out the rest of the urgent care center’s discharge paperwork so we can leave. Mimi’s outside giving Harold a call, hopefully not getting any more back-road driving directions, and Brandon’s at the mini-mart next door to the urgent care center buying us plenty of water to drink as well as some car snacks.

  (Hopefully not a single bag of pork rinds or package of beef jerky.)

  I’m sitting in the corner of the waiting room writing, because even though this last half hour has been full of a roller coaster of emotions that I never saw coming, and even though some of those emotions were more than a little arduous, I have to admit that I don’t want to forget even one detail of what just happened.

  I warned you not to expect this Dear Me Journal to be chock-full of cherish-worthy memories, but I may have been mistaken about that. Maybe “chock-full” isn’t the word I’d use, but there’ll definitely be more than a few cherish-worthy moments I won’t want to forget. And I know that I’ll be thankful I wrote them down so that we get to keep them forever.

  Love,

  Me

  Dear Me,

  This past year, I had so many days when I came home from school after a horrible tryout or audition and baked a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. On those days, I always felt like things were as bad as they could get.

  Losing my chance to play tennis or be in the play or sing in fine arts, especially if I’d made a fool of myself trying, seemed like such a big deal.

  But a batch of chocolate chip cookies could never fix all the stuff that happened today, or maybe I should say, all the stuff that could’ve happened.

  The truth is, I could bake cookies for the rest of my life, and it would never be enough therapy for me to feel better about losing what I might’ve lost.

  Maybe Mom’s right.

  Maybe I am a little too dramatic.

  I guess when real drama happens, it makes the made-up drama seem pretty inconsequential.

  Love,

  Me

  Dear Me,

  Once we left Southeast Urgent Care, Gram insisted we put aside Harold’s rural route directions. With the help of GPS, we headed straight toward the nearest main highway in search of a decent hotel to spend the night. We hit the jackpot at exit 16, when we found the Shady Palm Tree Travel Lodge. Mimi said it looked clean, Gram said it looked safe, and they both thought eighty-nine dollars a night was a fair price.

  We checked into two adjoining rooms, and then Brandon and I walked to the Stretch Your Dollar Store directly behind the hotel in search of something new to wear.

  Thankfully, at Stretch Your Dollar Brandon and I found plenty of gym shorts and T-shirts to choose from. The store even had socks and underwear, which, as you can imagine, we needed pretty badly by now. And you might be thinking, “Man, how embarrassing to shop for this kind of stuff with Brandon.” And if you would’ve told me just a couple days ago that I’d stand next to Brandon at a store and pay for new socks and underwear without giving it a second thought, I would’ve thought you were loonier tha
n some of Gram’s Sunny Sandy Shores neighbors. But I guess being on the road with someone and going through everything we’d gone through really changes a person.

  After long, hot showers, we all put on our new clothes (Gram and Mimi wore another of their new outfits from their Second Hand, Second Look spending spree) and walked to a restaurant right next door to the Shady Palm called Meat and Eat, where we ordered tons of food: meat loaf, pot roast, chili, corn bread, and lots of sweet potato fries. We had our waitress put all the food in the middle of the table, so we could dig in and share everything at the same time. And we ate and ate and ate, only talking to make comments like:

  “I’ve never tasted meat loaf as juicy as this.”

  “I wish the pot roast I made turned out this tender.”

  “I never knew I liked chili so much.”

  “I’m going to start making corn bread when I get home.”

  Eventually our appetites dwindled to nothing, and we all sat back with a sigh, our stomachs finally satisfied. But then the disappointment set in. Gram was out of chances. Her karaoke dream was dead. Realizing the depths of this distressful reality led to a colossal conversation about skipping the fair altogether and just heading back to Sunny Sandy Shores in the morning.

  Gram said since she didn’t qualify for the karaoke contest anyway, she didn’t see the point in going.

  “The only thing is, my GPS says Borlandsville is less than an hour from here,” Brandon said.

  “It seems a shame to turn back now when we’ve come so far,” Mimi added.

  I looked over at Gram. I knew her disappointment must feel heavier than a backpack full of bricks. I of all people could relate to why she wasn’t in much of a fair-going mood.

  When Gram had first told Mom and me about the road trip, I hadn’t necessarily had my heart set on going to the fair, but now it seemed like such a bummer to end the trip by skipping it. Maybe once Gram got to the fair, she’d surprise herself and have a good time after all. Besides, not going at all wasn’t going to change the fact that Gram didn’t get to sing karaoke.