The old road

For a third time, Madeline Sanders missed her turn, going around in endless circles. Her fingers clench the wheel, brain throbbing against her skull. The task of driving home should be easy. After all, houses don't move. Madeline has driven this street countless times. Once a week every Sunday for the past year.  

           Wiping away invisible dirt from her cheeks, Madeline saw the turn coming up again, and this time as she has done so many before Madeline made the first turn down the road onto a long narrow highway. The evergreen trees mix with the morning mist. Road clouded in a dim shadow. The sun rising slowly over towering buildings and billboards. Perfectly the same, not a branch out of place, yet ebony asphalt felt worn and altered. 

           The road was different, no, she was different.

Madeline Sanders would no longer be known as Madeline Sander, but now and forevermore Madeline Clark. It’s a good name, sensible, common. The name belonged to her father and his father before that. A name she once wore with pride in her childhood. In truth, she is no longer a child. Now she is a mother and divorced.  

     She made a wide turn, clipping the curve, as she rounded the intersection. Heart skipping a beat, Madeline steadied the wheel and shook off her nerves, you got this it’s the same old road. She told herself, She could drive this road blindfolded or so she thought.

It was a nearby café, with brick walls and olive doors that made her little car come to a complete halt. Pulling to the side of the road Madeline ogled the familiar landscaping. A thin drive and far too few parking spots. This little café stuck between two antique shops made for the perfect morning brunches. Touching her lips Madeline could feel his breath lingering, She had kissed her husband countless times among burnt cappuccino and muffins.

no, not husband-divorced… she bit her lip reminding herself.

   Divorced, it tasted wrong like old milk. Turned her upside down and inside out.

Her husband was the kindest of men. He was short, lean, and built like an ox, all muscle. They dated for about half a year or so, and married a year ago, in spring, with the flowers in full bloom. It was beautiful. The fortune of youth and love, they had it all. Waiting seemed useless.

The world seemed larger than life. Awash with a mythical red color, warm, and inventing. A filter only lovers have. They worked, and lived in a small apartment, just at the end of the city limits. Barely any furniture and no time for themselves but when they did they worshipped each other, it was love, pure, primal, and true.

           A gentle coo stirred her attention, pulling back onto the road the swaying and smooth glide of the tires kept the monster from waking. Amelia, She had named it, for no particular reason then it sounded pretty. As names go for monsters it's not the worst.

When at last life became more serious and Madeline's accidental pregnancy did she discover her husband never wanted children. A single question Madeline never thought to ask. That is how she learned the expression, only fools rush in.

Getting closer, to home.

Hit the gas and blaze past the few miles left, but she couldn’t, The road rocked and bobbed up and down left to right, Madeline held her stomach as she drove holding back pain, suffering, and also her egg burrito. Glancing back, to her surprise Amelia didn’t as much as flinch.

 Madeline sighs, how many times had she slept in the back of her mother’s minivan, Madeline cringed, not remotely ready to trade in her truck. Diapers, bottles, divorce, She wasn’t ready for much. She swerved around potholes as if it mattered, as if Amelia cared, It was something and something to do, and it was better than nothing.

     Divorce was not a decision made lightly, in pity and regret, but also made with haste. When Amelia was born her husband did not show. The day she decided to keep the baby was the last day she saw him, only communicating with lawyers and his parents. He had plucked her love and in pity gave her back the car and broken heart

Madeline hugged onto the wheel, fearing it might also be stripped away from her.

Amelia's eyes closed and rocking softly along the road. Small, but fat the babe was not the curse her husband had claimed and Amelia was also not the gift the nurses and doctors rejoiced in. It was by pure luck that this child was born and only by guilt did Madeline keep her. Even so, the child didn’t seem to notice its unwantedness in the world.

  Amelia clung to life and refused to be removed from Madeline's side. Wailing so loud and in abundance that the nurses refused to be alone with the Infant. 

The road grew clear entering her old neighborhood where they got married. bells ringing and banging into the ears drowning out the honking and the zooming of other cars as they pass by. This was the old road she learned to drive on, down two blocks were the car dealer she bought her first car and just a turn away was where she got her first speeding ticket. and yet no matter how much she tried it felt completely different as if she never drove down this street before.

Maybe that was the point.

   She was different but the same, a Clark

Yet again but no longer the Clark she once was. A mother no longer a wife it was like trying to turn paper into a tree, impossible

Shakily with heavy hands, she turned down the road. Just at the end of the corner stood a blue house she will always be able to call home.

  The car slumped into the old drive before a large oak tree, a thin rectangle house with a red roof and chimney. The babe stirred awake, Madeline turned the car off.

    She saw the end of this driveway thousands of times but something was new, this time her daughter will see it too. Madeline can’t go back to her husband, to the old life she had with him, however, she can at the very least move forward by moving back home.