to an unseeable surface. She wondered how long she’d been asleep.
‘There’s a lot of traffic right here. I’ll pull off at the next exit.’ Shelly’s voice too sounded distant, boxed in. Meg blinked, started to lift her head, felt a sharp pain in the side of her neck. She licked her dry lips, groggily remembered C.C. announcing several miles ago that MJ. had woken up and might need to pee. But Meg had drifted right back into a sleep that felt deeper than she’d had in weeks. With her head resting against her wadded-up sweater on the window, her neck felt like it had petrified at that angle. She massaged it with one hand, rubbed her eyes with the other, finally coming out of her stupor. A loud, sharp bark made her jump, sending a shooting pain down her neck.
M.J.’s bark was surprisingly deep, given her small size. Meg gingerly turned around in her seat. MJ. barked again, staring directly at her. There was an unmistakable look of urgency in the dog’s eyes. She remembered the same look in Buster’s eyes when he would stand by the back door, waiting to be let out. He never barked, though they’d wished he would. Meg had tried to teach him to bark, to complain, because too often she would come from another room to find him standing silently by the front door, waiting patiently, looking absolutely pained, and she would have no idea how long the poor dog had been suffering silently. Sometimes she would just get a feeling, maybe noting his absence for a while. She’d often find him leaning on the door, looking like he’d give anything for the power of speech at that moment. Or opposable thumbs. After a while, he learned to come find them, then just her. Grant, whether watching TV or reading a book, would be so absorbed he would rarely notice the dog’s urgent stares. So he’d find Meg, home his big brown eyes in on her.
Buster. Meg closed her eyes again, a small moan escaping as she pictured not their old lovable, floppy-eared shepherd mix, but instead his urn. She had initially set it on the mantel, thinking: that’s where urns go. But unbeknownst to her, days before the trip, Grant had moved it. Merely moved it. She’d thought he’d taken it.
For three days, Meg had believed Grant’s note: that he was going to Lake Louise to sprinkle Buster’s ashes. She had been hurt and angry that he would do such a meaningful and important ritual without her. But she had not suspected more to his unannounced departure. It was only on the third day that she found Buster’s urn. It was completely full, tucked behind the curtain on the wide, low windowsill of the living room. It was as if Grant had said his own final goodbye to the dog by placing the urn where Buster had so often sat in life: at the window, watching the squirrels cavort across the hillside and into the woods. Panicked at what her bones already knew, Meg had searched the house, found all the wrong things missing: Grant’s camera equipment, his laptop, his box of old manuscript starts from college. His baseball cards. The photos of the kids from his dresser. Left behind were his Fighting Cougars mug from work, the Cougar book ends–a gift on his retirement–many of his clothes, all of his ties, and his briefcase. Their wedding photo remained on his dresser.
Although Meg had tried to rationalize all this–Well, he’s just gone off to do some photography, some writing, she thought, even though he’d never actually done that before, just talked about it–after finding the urn, there was a foreboding inside her for the rest of that day, one that grew all night, like a tsunami slowly rolling in from another continent, not knowing when it would crash over her. It had kept her awake all night.
The next morning Meg wandered in her thin, blue robe, no slippers on her cold feet, through the quiet house, clutching her robe closed with one hand, checking all the spots where the missing items should be. Only hours later, when, sobbing again, she’d picked up Buster’s urn, cradling it in her arms, had she seen the other note. He’d anchored it–or hidden it–under the urn. It only confirmed what her heart already knew.
Meg, I’ve left. I had to. I’m doing this for both of us. All the bits of glue that were keeping us together are gone. I think we both know that. I have needs I can no longer deny. I’ve ignored my own dreams and aspirations for too long. Maybe you’ll find a dream of your own.
I’ll write when I land somewhere. Take care.
Grant
His words ate at her like parasites, from the inside out. Who was he to say she didn’t have a dream? Hadn’t she already achieved that dream? Of raising a family, meaningful work, a life-long marriage? It was his note that had ended her dream.
A car honked. Meg blinked, that amorphous pain in her torso again. She couldn’t even tell exactly where it was. Maybe that’s what a broken heart felt like, when it spilled over inside you. She stared at the traffic zooming along the lanes of interstate.
‘I am not kiddin’, Shell!’ said C.C. ‘She’s going t’pee on me!
She won’t even eat a cookie.’ Meg looked back and saw C.C. offering the dog a piece of Nilla Wafer, saying, ‘Cookie? Cookie, girl?’ but M.J. turned her head.
‘All right, all right. I’m working on it! Hang on,’ said Shelly. She made a hissing sound as she frantically scanned the heavy traffic. She flipped on the turn indicator. ‘C’mon, somebody let me in!’
Shelly made her way, at seventy miles an hour, across one of the lanes. The dog was whining in the back seat, punctuated by nervous noises from C.C.
Meg rubbed her face vigorously, sat up, rubbed and stretched her neck till it was moveable again, then helped Shelly watch for holes in the traffic that they might dart into.
‘Maybe after this green car, get ready…No! Wait! That van is changing lanes.’
‘Nice signal, asshole,’ Shelly said to the van as it flew by.
Meg felt displaced and disheartened. A passenger in her own little car, far from home in every sense, she was just so much flotsam being carried along this anonymous highway, and her suddenly anonymous life. That tsunami had hit, swept through her life, her home, shot her over the edge, a crushing, noisy waterfall, dropping her here. A passenger, in her car, and in her life.
Another horn blared. Cars of every color and shape whizzed by, passing the slow ones doing the speed limit. Why was everyone in such a hellfire hurry? What, exactly, were they rushing to with such life-threatening speed? Did they even know? Meg wondered. Did she?
‘I swear, girls! If we don’t get this dog outta this car, and soon, we are gonna have a little sea of dog pee back here!’ Meg looked back, saw C.C. trying to carefully ease her coat under M.J., over her lap, just in case.
‘Shit!’ said Shelly, scanning and twisting back, then forward. ‘Come on! Somebody let me in! Please? Damn! Okay, if you want to play hardball…’ She pulled on the emergency flashers. Nervously monitoring traffic both in front and behind, she cried, ‘Meg, roll down your window and point! I’m going to have to just go for it!’
Meg stared at her briefly, then, like an automaton, rolled down her window. The wind made her eyes water as it whipped into the car. She waved at the driver coming up, mouthed ‘Emergency’ and pointed. Amazingly, the driver slowed. Shelly veered into the gap, then kept on going. Meg screamed as they cut off a huge pickup truck, his horn blasting. M.J. started barking in the back seat.
‘Coming through! Dog pee-pee emergency! Sorry!’ yelled Shelly, veering across lanes. The pickup truck driver shot Meg the finger. She pulled herself back into the car, rolled up her window, holding her back tightly against the seat. Finally Shelly got the car to the wide shoulder of the highway, braking slowly at first, then very firmly. Meg felt squeezed by her seat belt.
‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ cried C.C. Meg clicked her seat belt release and was out of the car before it had come to a complete stop. She pulled open C.C.’s door. She grasped M.J.’s narrow sides, lowered her to the asphalt. She wasn’t sure the dog’s toenails had even touched down before the relief finally flowed into M.J.’s eyes, and a yellow rivulet twined along the asphalt.
‘Thank you, Jesus! In the nick of time!’ C.C.’s hands were on her heaving chest as she sat in the car. ‘Better tie this on her again.’
She thrust the twine toward Meg. Meg untangled it, made