Blind Spot

Giving herself a last critical look in the mirror, eyes drifting over her curves to make sure she hadn’t worn anything too form-fitting, Winnow let her palms press down over her linen slacks. Something about the loose weave of the fabric catching on the grooves of her fingers, calmed her. Avery was around the corner, shuffling through stacks of folded shirts. The bang of slamming drawers thudded through the wall. “At least he’s trying to get ready,” she thought, shaking out the bouncy curls of her shoulder length blonde bob. 

The morning had gone according to plan so far, but a gnawing worry sat in the pit of her stomach. Avery had been late to school every day last week. Every day was such a struggle just to get him in the car. His hair wasn’t right, his t-shirt was too scratchy, he didn’t have the right socks. No matter what they tried to prepare for the next day, when morning came, it was a new struggle. 

Usually, Winnow handled it calmly with patience. But this morning, she had something else riding on her time. Finally, after months of searching, she’d landed an interview at a decent company where many of her friends worked. She was confident she would get the job, if only she could get to the interview on time. Thinking of how much that paycheck and those benefits would change their lives was almost too overwhelming. 

“Ouch!” She winced, sucking in air past gritted teeth. She hadn’t noticed doing it, but there were teeth marks on the first knuckle of her index finger. She’d bit down hard. Time was getting away. The cool aluminum door knob slid into her hand haphazardly as she grabbed her purse and exited the bedroom. Time to see if the kid was ready. 

“How’s it going?” Winnow hollered, rounding the corner to Avery’s bedroom. The click of her fancy office heels cracked against their wood floors.

From inside the bathroom, wails of “I can’t find my socks and shoes,” pierced the air.

“They’re still in the car, I think, honey,” Winnow offered up, suggesting that he run out to the car to get them. The hot, heavy air of the garage crashed against her face as the door swung open. With a resounding thud, her palm landed squarely on the garage door button. It scraped and squeaked open as it always did. 

In a blur, Avery had squeezed past her into the garage, toward the driveway where the car sat, covered in a thin layer of water droplets. He stopped cold at the edge of the garage. 

“SHIT. It’s misting outside.” Winnow thought, knowing that they were dangerously near a meltdown if Avery had to walk out there barefoot to get his own shoes. Never mind that he was the one who decided to leave them in there. 

Winnow loved this kind of grey, misty weather, but in this situation, it meant only one thing. She was going to have to add one more thing to her already dwindling timeline. 

“Heaven forbid he get his feet a little wet,” she grumbled, swinging the back door open and setting the keys on the roof. Winnow bent over the back seats, tottering on her heels in a careful balancing act with one leg extended as a counter balance. She always wondered if she looked like one of those Olympic ice-skaters when she did that. 

The moment passed. Winnow slammed the car door, shoes and a fresh pair of socks in hand, and click-clacked her way back into the house. 

Avery was potatoed onto the couch already. Five-foot eight at only twelve years old, Winnow knew he was having trouble fitting in at school and it didn’t help that he was dealing with the standard-issue middle-school awkwardness either. 

“Middle school sucks for everyone, honey, I’m sorry, but you still have to go.” Winnow stated, her voice tense. She was about to start hollering at him to get moving. Her patience was running out. 

She hated yelling at him. Especially since it usually had the opposite effect of whatever she was wanting him to do. Her frustration was building.

Sock by sock, shoe by shoe, Avery got ready and headed out to the car. 

To speed things up, Winnow had grabbed his backpack and lobbed it into the passenger seat already. The car bounced side to side with the force of Avery’s butt landing in the seat, then Winnow. She gave him a fist bump and smiled in relief. They were both going to be on time. 

Seatbelts clicked, and… no key. 

Derailed by the sudden realization that her keys were missing, Winnow thought a moment. “No need to panic, no big deal.” Her hands thrust down into the soft black leather bag she’d chosen to go with her interview suit. Flicking through all the nooks and grooves where her key usually settled within the purse, her breath quickened with every unsuccessful shuffle. After a visual check turned up nothing either, her eyes darted downward across her seat, Avery’s seat, the gaps between them, “could they have fallen onto the floor?” 

“I know, I KNOW I used it to unlock the car door this morning, so it has to be around here somewhere.” Winnow assured herself, tamping down a rising panic attack.

“Maybe I dropped it inside when I took the shoes back in,” she thought, reluctantly heading back into the house to retrace her steps. 

A careful walk-through of her morning replayed out with every detail scanned, underneath furniture examined, even places she hadn’t been that morning got a once-over just to be sure. 

Absolutely nothing.

Gritting her teeth again, “okay, they HAVE to be in the fucking car.” Winnow charged outside, fuming. Frustrated, she yanked her purse out of the car, proceeding to dump everything in the seat, including turning it inside out so nothing would stay lodged inside. 

No keys. 

“Sorry honey,” she lifted her head with apologetic smiles, feeling like a complete ass for hassling him when she was the one who had misplaced the car keys, causing their current delay.

Avery smiled contentedly back at her, half-way through the smoothie she blended up for him earlier. “It’s okay mom, you’ll find em,” he encourages.

“What about your side?!” Winnow perked up, once again hurrying around to the passenger side of the car and throwing open the door. A quick scan turned up zilch. Nothing except for a few straw wrappers and empty water bottles that had settled up underneath the car seat ages ago, from the looks of them. 

Back inside, Winnow retraced her steps once more, checking in all the same places, as if she had not looked thoroughly enough before. Slumping against her smoothly painted, cool-grey walls, she reached into her pockets and wrapped her fingers around her phone. She can already feel that it’s too late, but her thumb finds the groove of the home button and presses down as she lifts it out of her pocket. Instantly, the screen lights up and sure enough, there are only fifteen minutes left for her to drop this child at school and then drive thirty minutes into town for her interview. 

In two swift motions, her heels go flying across the floor. Her back slides down the wall, resting elbows on her linen-textured knees. Burning tears well up and begin to drip down her face, soaking into her palms. The running mascara stings and Winnow knows her face is ruined. 

“Dammit. I’m crying over a set of keys.” The thought creeped in after several waves of frustration had bowled over into tears. Black mascara and eyeliner dissolved into salty streams down her cheeks, and landed in little gray droplets, staining the cream blouse Winnow had planned to wear to the interview. 

“Shit. I have to let them know. What do I tell them? There’s no good excuse.” Winnow deliberated for a few moments that felt like half an hour, then turned her phone on again, searched through her mail app for the recruiter’s contact info, and dialed her up.

The conversation went differently than she had expected.  

“Mom, are you okay?” Avery’s voice called through the slightly cracked open garage door.

“Can you bring in our stuff from the car? We’re not going anywhere today, I guess.” Winnow’s voice dulled with defeat. 

Avery perked up, “Really?! Sure!” And disappeared from the doorway. 

Several doors slammed and Winnow heard the garage door grinding to a close as Avery returned with her purse and his backpack, dropping them against the wall by the door. Seeing that his mom was upset, Avery helped her stand up and wrapped his arms around her in a warm hug. 

“At least they were willing to reschedule me,” Winnow tried a smile, her eyes still puffy. 

“That’s good.” Avery replied, letting go and then disappeared into their home office. Whirring sounds of his computer powering up filled the air in their quiet home. 

“Hey, I left your keys on the table!” Avery called out from the office.

Winnow choked on the breath of air she’d been inhaling at that moment. “Are you kidding me?” She asked in disbelief. Sure enough, when her eyes zeroed in on the table, there they were. 

For moment, she considered throwing Avery back in the car and taking him to school. Instead she laughed, “where were they?”

“Mom,” he paused, poking his head out the door, “they were on top of the car.” He waited a moment to see her face palm with a deep sigh. 

“Of course they were. Glad you found em’,” she replied.  

Winnow absently floated to her bedroom, plopping backwards onto the plush made bed. As the blood came rushing back to her limbs, her breath and heart beat returned back to normal. She laughed to herself incredulously, “My anchor to sanity relies on knowing where my car keys are. The. Fucking. Keys. How fucked up is that?” 

She turned her phone on again and settled into the fluffy down pillows. “This is exhausting,” she thought and scrolled video apps until her eyelids got too heavy and drifted into a nap.