were carried out more on the phone than in person, especially with Shelly’s stint in New York, their friendship had kept them all afloat in hard times, held firm the sails in high winds.
Meg silently recounted all the reasons the trip had never happened till now: someone’s kid got sick, or was in the playoffs, or was graduating. Or someone got a promotion, or four new clients, or school was ending late because of snow days. Or someone’s husband had the flu, or suddenly had to go out of town that week, or was turning forty, or fifty, or was just too busy, depressed or tired to be left alone with the household responsibilities. Once, it was Meg’s dog. He’d cut his leg on some garden edging and the vet bill had wiped out her entire vacation budget. Meg had always thought all the reasons were valid. Disappointing, but valid. But now, at this gray moment, on this gray day, they seemed like so many excuses strung together. Even Buster.
Oh my God! She turned, wide-eyed, looked back at C.C., then over at Shelly. ‘How ironic is this? You know all those reasons that kept coming up that we never did the Great Escape? It just occurred to me that the only reason we’re on this trip now is because…’ she had to take a breath, ‘…all those reasons left us first.’
She looked at her friends again and they looked at her.
‘Fuck.’ Shelly leaned back against her door. ‘That’s true. First Len dies, then I lose most of my life savings in that damn mall development deal, having the added side benefit of making every man run to the other side of the street when they see me.’ She turned to Meg, her expression still incredulous. ‘Then your old dog dies and Grant takes off. You’d think The Trio had a curse thrown down on us.’
C.C. made three neat spitting sounds in the back seat. ‘Don’t even say that!’
‘Relax,’ said Meg. ‘It’s merely the curse of middle age.’
No one spoke for a minute, then C.C.’s voice floated up from the back seat, quiet, tentative. ‘So, I guess we’re broken down, huh?’
‘Of course we are,’ said Shelly. ‘And the car is broken down too.’ Shelly cracked up, but no one else did.
‘This isn’t a good sign,’ said C.C. softly, ominously.
And, there it is! Not with the signs again. Meg thought the words just a half-beat before Shelly barked them out.
‘Not with the signs again, C.C.!’
Meg felt that surge of anger again: at C.C. for perpetually seeing everything, good or bad, as a sign, and at Shelly for castigating C.C. for it. It occurred to Meg that their friendship had stood the test of time, but never had they put it to the test of the Road Trip. Not to mention: Remodeling a House. Which necessarily also meant: Going into Business Together. And, most dangerous of all, Living Together.
Meg’s breathing grew tight and rapid, her heart pounding. The nausea, the headache. The weather. Migraine. As if the universe was saying: This is but one way things can get worse. She forced herself to inhale deeply. Don’t say it, she told herself, at the insistent thought in her head. But the words came out anyway. ‘She’s right. I think this whole trip may have been a mistake.’
‘Now, c’mon,’ said Shelly, lightly punching Meg in the arm. ‘We are three competent women. This is nothing.’ She made a ‘pbllth’ sound. A mere blip on the radar. We’ve been through way more than a measly old car breakdown together.’
That was true. Birth, marriage, divorce, death, financial problems.
Abandonment.
Shit happens. And it seemed especially to happen when you turned fifty, thought Meg. Your kids leave. And then the dog dies. She’d had other friends who’d lost their old dogs or cats just before or after their last kid went off to college. No coincidence. They’d all waited till their youngest kid was five or six before they relented to the incessant begging and got a puppy or kitten. So all those animals simply came to the end of their natural lives at the exact time when many of the moms were feeling like a significant part of their own lives was ending. But Meg had been looking forward to the empty nest, that’s why she’d taken early retirement. She would not have if she’d known her husband, too, was going to leave her.
She reached down with her left hand, found the lever and reclined her seat; she couldn’t go far because the cooler and jackets and pillows were on the back seat behind her. She covered her eyes with her hands, massaging her forehead and temples with her fingertips. Her lower back ached, and her underwear was threatening to bisect her. But she didn’t have the energy to rearrange anything.
She longed for the safety and comfort of her living room, to be stretched out on her blue velvet couch, facing the big picture window that overlooked the slope of the hill. In her imagination, Buster was taking up half the couch, but keeping her feet warm. Dear old Buster. Her last act before leaving home had been to sprinkle that dear, dumb dog’s ashes on the hillside behind their house, saying prayers for him, and for herself, to no one at all.
Home. The purple and white crocuses would soon be dotting that hillside, not quite the cheerleaders of spring that tulips or even daffodils are, but maybe the junior varsity squad, smaller, less popular, but still cute and perky. Every year, just when she needed it most, they had cheered her into believing that spring would once again be victorious over the long, northern Iowa winter. But maybe not this year. Her life had been so turned upside down that now even the spinning of the earth on its axis seemed to be in question.
She was vaguely aware of C.C. and Shelly quietly talking, the kind of softly urgent exchanges between upright people around a prone person, in a coma maybe, or discovered inert on the sidewalk. But Meg drifted away, backing out of reality, which she did so often lately.
But reality, as it always does, followed. The familiar image of her husband, not her, ensconced on the couch with Buster sent a dull ache through her. Then a thought made her heart skip and race in a way that was both invigorating and life-threatening, all at once. Maybe Grant was there now! She put a hand to her chest, unconsciously spreading her fingers wide, like a net over her sternum. Maybe he had come back, was even now reading one of the letters she’d written and left for him, just in case, on the kitchen table.
A weak groan escaped from deep within her. She knew all too well that her house was empty–empty of children, empty of Buster, empty of Grant, and most of all empty of herself, because even when she’d been living there, alone, the past few weeks, she’d felt barely a shell of herself. And maybe even before Grant had left. In her heart of hearts, she’d known that their marriage had been leaking air for years, invisibly, like a balloon forgotten in the corner of the living room long after the party is over. Wizened, sinking almost imperceptibly, but undeniably, weighted down now by the very ribbon that was supposed to keep it from floating away.
‘Meg-legs?’ C.C. enquired again. Meg held up a finger, asking for another minute before anything was required of her. ‘Okay, honey, take your time. We’re warm and toasty in here. And we’ve got food.’
Good ol’ C.C. She would sit quietly in the back for days, munching her chocolate bars, supporting Meg in her fragility. In fact, it wasn’t her own but C.C.’s situation that had finally made this trip happen, first with Lenny’s death, then Aunt Georgie’s and the inheritance of Dogs’ Wood, the house in Tennessee.
So much change. Wasn’t life supposed to be less full of change, not more, with age? She wasn’t sure where she’d gotten that idea, but it was dead wrong.
A noisy clatter startled her. She abruptly sat up, bringing her seatback forward with the flip of the lever. The rain had suddenly intensified, the fat drops making a chaotic drumbeat on the car.
‘Oh, yay. That’s what we needed. A percussive soundtrack to our…situation,’ said Shelly, looking out her window, her enthusiasm of a moment ago gone.
Meg looked at her friends; they were both gazing skyward, hunched down into themselves as if they expected the roof to fall in. Meg grasped the key again, her mouth set. She felt both women’s rapt attention on her. C.C. began muttering a prayer.