MY MOTHER, with her auburn hair swept upwards and secured with an oversized bow, sat outside a motel room on a hot, humid night while my family trekked across a continent on a promise of work made to my father.
My parents gave me a small cup of hot chocolate, purchased with a dollar that they hoped would soon be replenished. A tasty bribe to assuage their fears about my fears. I had no idea about the urgency of this journey, the pressure of the move, the discomfort of the deep summer doldrums climate.
We were making our way across America.
We were traveling at night to avoid the heat, the long silent miles of I-10 disappearing beneath the steady tires of a maroon-colored 1967 Thunderbird. Seattle to Long Beach to Atlanta. The aero-space industry was relocating its talent to wherever it was needed; engineers were moving between the hubs of missile building, airplane manufacturing, and space exploration. Conquering the skies meant traversing the earth.
The relentless sun in the sky seemed to target its intense rays at those who were designing ways to get farther away from it, into the depths of space. Perhaps the sun was flexing its summer solstice muscle. It had defeated Icarus and his wings fashioned from feathers and wax. Now it was tormenting those who worked with metal and rocket fuel.
The public would sit in awe in front of their television sets, not knowing that the brainpower that fueled the space race was logging hard miles on Earth. Seattle. Long Beach. Houston, Atlanta. Cocoa Beach. Titusville. Traveling from one finished project to the next project. A ‘wing and prayer’ was an entire industry’s zeitgeist.
All I saw was my mother’s youthful beauty. My father captured that moment in time by snapping a photograph with a Polaroid. The memory sealed with the smell of hot chocolate from a motel vending machine. There was peace and comfort in not knowing about the uncertainty; all that existed was the smell of the chocolate and the anticipation of it cooling down sufficiently to be devoured.
In time, the Polaroids faded. Technology can only take you so far.
In time my father died, and my mother’s beautiful auburn hair turned white. Now I face the same worries that consumed them all those years ago.
Traveling to a distant new job in Seattle, something supposed to give me a brighter future. Retracing my father’s footsteps.
I have little to assuage my fears about my own fears.
The Thunderbird from all those years ago is long gone; I cried when they took it away. When you are six, the car is part of the family. Its removal was one of those moments in which you realize that things can be taken away.
In time, there is another car, and the payment was mine to pay. A white Mercedes-Benz, a ghost to replace the red-blooded car that owned I-10 on those summer nights of 1967. My husband totals the car in a wreck, while arguing with his girlfriend on his cell phone.
That becomes a memory that sometimes things are unjustly given away.
We were making our way across America.
We were traveling at night to avoid the heat, the long silent miles of I-10 disappearing beneath the steady tires of a maroon-colored 1967 Thunderbird. Seattle to Long Beach to Atlanta. The aero-space industry was relocating its talent to wherever it was needed; engineers were moving between the hubs of missile building, airplane manufacturing, and space exploration. Conquering the skies meant traversing the earth.
The relentless sun in the sky seemed to target its intense rays at those who were designing ways to get farther away from it, into the depths of space. Perhaps the sun was flexing its summer solstice muscle. It had defeated Icarus and his wings fashioned from feathers and wax. Now it was tormenting those who worked with metal and rocket fuel.
The public would sit in awe in front of their television sets, not knowing that the brainpower that fueled the space race was logging hard miles on Earth. Seattle. Long Beach. Houston, Atlanta. Cocoa Beach. Titusville. Traveling from one finished project to the next project. A ‘wing and prayer’ was an entire industry’s zeitgeist.
All I saw was my mother’s youthful beauty. My father captured that moment in time by snapping a photograph with a Polaroid. The memory sealed with the smell of hot chocolate from a motel vending machine. There was peace and comfort in not knowing about the uncertainty; all that existed was the smell of the chocolate and the anticipation of it cooling down sufficiently to be devoured.
In time, the Polaroids faded. Technology can only take you so far.
In time my father died, and my mother’s beautiful auburn hair turned white. Now I face the same worries that consumed them all those years ago.
Traveling to a distant new job in Seattle, something supposed to give me a brighter future. Retracing my father’s footsteps.
I have little to assuage my fears about my own fears.
The Thunderbird from all those years ago is long gone; I cried when they took it away. When you are six, the car is part of the family. Its removal was one of those moments in which you realize that things can be taken away.
In time, there is another car, and the payment was mine to pay. A white Mercedes-Benz, a ghost to replace the red-blooded car that owned I-10 on those summer nights of 1967. My husband totals the car in a wreck, while arguing with his girlfriend on his cell phone.
That becomes a memory that sometimes things are unjustly given away.
⸎ ⸎ ⸎
I SOMETIMES SNEAK A CUP of hot chocolate, even in the sweltering summers. The smell alone can take me back, to that lost balcony and time. Where no one is dead, I have not been betrayed, and my mother’s auburn hair is always tied up neatly into a happy bow. The Thunderbird sits in the motel parking space, anticipating many miles trying to outwit the scorching sun, not knowing it will one day be scrapped.
One day, I travel backwards, in place and time. Perhaps the asphalt road and empty fields remember me and that previous journey. I need to experience somewhere comforting after the divorce. I travel at twilight in a rental car, leery of traveling alone at night. Looking for a place to stay.
I locate the place where the motel used to stand, the one where my mother sat in her youth. It is a small patch of abandoned concrete now. Weeds have set up residence where only memories remain.
I find a chain hotel and check in.
But fortune favours those it loves. There is a vending machine, the old- fashioned kind, which dispenses hot beverages into cups that drop from a place inside the antiquated machine. I feed the machine dollar bills and press the button for hot chocolate. The machine purrs, then spits out my drink. I take it back to my room, settling in for the night. Watching television and paying attention to a weather forecast I have no stake in; I will not be here for those warm sunny days ahead.
I am between origins and destinations; I have no current home in place. I have no current home in time.
But the whiff of the hot chocolate in my cup – that smell momentarily eclipses the losses and the uncertainties. It is time travel in a small wax-coated cup. I breathe in the aroma as it cools, until it is the perfect temperature to drink.
In that one precious moment the ghosts live, and I am free.
One day, I travel backwards, in place and time. Perhaps the asphalt road and empty fields remember me and that previous journey. I need to experience somewhere comforting after the divorce. I travel at twilight in a rental car, leery of traveling alone at night. Looking for a place to stay.
I locate the place where the motel used to stand, the one where my mother sat in her youth. It is a small patch of abandoned concrete now. Weeds have set up residence where only memories remain.
I find a chain hotel and check in.
But fortune favours those it loves. There is a vending machine, the old- fashioned kind, which dispenses hot beverages into cups that drop from a place inside the antiquated machine. I feed the machine dollar bills and press the button for hot chocolate. The machine purrs, then spits out my drink. I take it back to my room, settling in for the night. Watching television and paying attention to a weather forecast I have no stake in; I will not be here for those warm sunny days ahead.
I am between origins and destinations; I have no current home in place. I have no current home in time.
But the whiff of the hot chocolate in my cup – that smell momentarily eclipses the losses and the uncertainties. It is time travel in a small wax-coated cup. I breathe in the aroma as it cools, until it is the perfect temperature to drink.
In that one precious moment the ghosts live, and I am free.
Over seventy-five of Laura J. Campbell’s short stories have appeared in Chilling Crime Stories, Road Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers Vol. 6, Reader Beware: A Fear Street Appreciation Anthology, and other publications. Most of her work is available on Amazon. Laura is encouraged in her writing by her children, Alexander and Samantha.
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