June.

June 4th. 9:00 Am.

I stared out the window to watch the countryside blur around me, not focused on anything in particular. Just trying to let my mind drift away. Putting a few shapes in my mind's eyes and occasionally trying to find them in the clouds. Anything I can do to distract myself a little longer.

My daddy’s in the other seat with the wheel in hand, gripping it so tightly his knuckles went beyond white. He swaps hands when he needs to let feeling come back. He’s as much a worrier as I am, only I know it was worse for him. He was more of a talker than I was, so I knew his way to distract himself would be to keep a hundred conversations going, all on a thousand different topics.

He’d given up when we’d traded seats a few hours back when he saw I was intent on my staring into my own world of nothing. The old man was used to my mental absence. A bad habit I’d never shaken as a kid well into my adult years. It was worse this time, and we both knew it. It just wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t get that gnawing pressure to go, but the words were frozen on my lips each time I tried to break the silence.

This was the first time my dad and I had been on an extended road trip since I was a teenager. Dad had driven big rigs through most of my life, and there was no better feeling than climbing into that cabin as we toured the great roads. At least, that was how I had felt.

That drifting took hold as I grew up on the highways until I went from a bright-eyed kid to a bored teenager, nose constantly down in his phone, purposely oblivious to the surroundings and goings of the world. I was convinced I’d seen it all.

It annoyed the old man something fierce, but we powered through that old tale of teenagers eventually hating their parents when Dad made sure to stop at all the exciting places we could. Mines, ancient battlefields, drive-through zoos, everything and anything that could capture my attention for just a few minutes.

I didn’t tell him much, even when he rightfully started to think I’d finally just grown beyond the travel, but I still thought about the day I saw him parallel park that giant rig between two itty bitty cars that it could have eaten as a snack like it was absolutely nothing. I still regaled everyone from time to time with that story.

Gradually, when I got into schools for nothing I’d ever use to dead-end jobs that made me wanna go to college just to escape agonizing work that I loathed, my younger brother took over for me as the passenger on that old truck, off to delivery trucks filled with goodies going everywhere. A journey that would take them both to the furthest reaches of the country.

When that day passed, it was like handing off responsibility I didn’t want, and my dad felt that. In place was another son just as thrilled for the adventure as I had been.

That made it all the worse being here now on this drive. How we both knew it should have been my brother here.

He was the outspoken one, the one that kept Dad talking, although the monotonous that the open road could become. The son that had actually still cared to be there instead of tuning out the drive until he was back home.

Funny how younger siblings just had a way of smashing those little enjoyments so much worse.

It had been years since we’d spoken about my brother. Longer for me than for my dad. He’d just latched onto what was left of him until there was nothing left to hold, and even he had to give up on him.

When the spoiled runt had gotten just about everything he could want; house, car, anything he could want and squeeze out of my folks, he’d eventually decide there was nothing left to get since just faking being in their lives became too much of a hassle and he’d slowly removed himself entirely.

I’d seen it coming sooner, knew the damage it would cause, and had to take up that role he had, and another son cast it off with no mind to care. Off I was back to picking up the pieces he’d tossed aside so carelessly. I’d be lying if I said it still hadn’t stung he’d even left me behind.

Today though, would be the last run the truck would ever make before Dad finally retired from an almost forty-long driving career.

I knew he’d have kept her going for the rest of his life if he could have gotten recertified for his CDL, but that same history being with the rig hadn’t been kind to him when it came down to his health until, finally, his blood pressure had just become too much to manage away from home. It would be up around his birthday a few days from now.

I pinched the bridge of my nose with a hard sigh.

Some birthday gift. Forced to leave his almost lifetime career with nothing but to show for it but his rig he wouldn’t even be able to drive soon, and I for sure wasn’t going to take up the mantle. His failing health that he’d need to correct when he was officially retired.

And all with a son that couldn’t even find the guts to talk. I knew I was going to have to do something, but god did I not know what.

————————————————————

June 4th, 10:00 Pm.

I was especially groggy when I woke back up, rough sleeping was assured, really, no matter how much you traveled, but I hadn’t been on a trip like this in a while. I felt seriously out of it with a heavy thirst and a hunger that had just been building, smacking my lips to get them to stop being so painfully dry.

My eyes widened a bit when I saw how dark it was now and the time.

10 Pm. 

We were supposed to swap shifts every four to six hours. He’d left me sleep beyond that and well towards night.

I felt my temper rise for a moment.

He knew he wasn’t supposed to drive extensively like this—especially not past six hours, let alone twelve. We should have breaked after his turn so he could walk. That’s what we were supposed to do to help with his blood pressure.

That spark of anger cooled when I saw the bag full of untouched food and drink, undisturbed for who knew how long. All just sitting for when I woke back up.

I couldn’t bring myself to make some of the first words I’d spoken shouting. Not when he’d not only taken off the pressure of having to talk, but was even still thinking of me enough to grab me things when we’d stopped. Despite how much I made it seem like I didn’t want to be there.

Then I saw the opened can of whatever energy drink he’d gotten to stay awake and pressed my head tightly against the headrest. He looked so much more disheveled than he had been. Having driven so long despite where we were driving to.

He’d reached over to take another drink, probably to finish it off, and I had to grab his hand.

He jumped a touch when he saw I was awake, all as I shook my head, with him knowing he was supposed to be off these things now.

There wasn’t any arguments when I made him pull over for the night as I drove us down to the nearest hotel, all on me.

He’d nearly refused that time, but I absolutely wasn’t going to let him sleep in the truck after the drive he’d had.

Silence was all that was between us as he got into bed as the cab was a sleeper unit, and I munched away at the stuff he’d gotten me. Snack mix with those crispy rye chips.

My favorite.

———————————————————— June 5th, 7:00 Am.

I was up getting our bags back into the rig when Dad came out as surprised as he’d ever been seeing his nite owl son up before even he was, and I was happy to shock him with that, even more so when I took the first drive.

He was enthralled with the silence this time as he watched my performance piloting the rig, especially when I took us down the right roads.

It was a little difficult, of course, with Dad having to point out when I was cranking too hard on shifting gears, but he nodded in approval when he saw I was driving like a regular operator.

The one part I for sure kept my mouth shut on was how I’d been up for a good part of the night looking up directions. The last sign I saw said we’d left Little Rock, and I didn’t know how much further it was to Tennessee off-hand.

He gave me enough grief about how much I needed a GPS, and there was, in fact, a burning shame that came from being such a poor navigator as the son of a trucker, but I only needed to ask for directions a dozen or so times—new personal best.

We were out of the almost endless inner border that was Texas and were off again. It was funny to us both how more than a day was spent trying to escape, but that was all as we once more fell into the same routine. The trip weighed on us again as heavily as the rig.

————————————————————

June 7th, 6:00 Pm.

I was slumped down hard into a couch, so wishing it could just swallow me up—anything so I could disappear.

Dad was outside in the truck, thinking who knew what. Angrier than I had seen him in a while.

Standing away from me with teary eyes was the friend I knew whose place we’d stopped out to crash for a night in the middle of Kentucky, looking crushed in a way that had to have been soul-shattering.

This was more than a friend for the longest time. She was closer to a partner that had just spilled the fact she even was, and that I’d found work down here. A king time plan after she’d left Texas to move down with family and how I’d planned to eventually follow. I hadn’t told my parents at all yet. I’d meant to tell Dad, and with all my shudder footing around the right time never came up. So the worst possible time had come up instead,

She apologized profusely, and I had to stop her. It wasn’t her fault at all. If only I’d told her more than Dad and I were coming up on our way to Virginia, just not why this wouldn’t have happened. I kept not telling anyone things.

When she’d calmed down enough, she urged me to go out now. If I waited and this built, it would only get worse.

I had to swallow every bit of insecurity and reluctance, and it was close to the most difficult thing I’d ever made myself do as I grabbed the truck handle and opened the door.

I’d expected to hear a quick shout or an angry face Dad. But he just had his hands in his face with plenty of tears he’d made sure hadn’t fallen. It had all been pouring out, and I immediately thought of my brother.

Dad was furious at so many things, but here, it was because he thought he didn’t know me, that I was slipping away just like his youngest had. That I was looking for anyway I could to leave.

I climbed into the passenger chair, not knowing anything I could say. Knowing he wasn’t wrong to think this, that I was a teenager all over again, disinterested in the traveling as though that led me to drift from him.

I didn’t have anything to say. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, as I did too often. How I wished I could so badly.

I hated myself when I got out of the cab and said goodbye to my poorly revealed partner before dragging myself back to it. And off we were again.

He thought I didn’t want to be there again, and I wasn’t giving him a reason not to believe it. And I wasn’t fighting to change that.

————————————————————

June 8th, 7 something.

We were stopped on some highway in whatever part of Kentucky we were at now, I’d really stopped paying attention the past few hours worse than I usually did. The rig was shut off after we’d heard a not-too-pleasant sounding pop, followed by a few puffs of smoke, right before the rig just up and died on us.

It was an intense, harrowing event for all of five seconds as Dad pulled the truck over on the side of the open country road, a special kind of a whole lot of nothing.

Dad was rummaging through the front, trying to get things working again, and I was just here inside still, watching the lights flicker occasionally before getting the go-ahead to get the ignition going, giving the key a turn absentmindedly. It would sputter to life for only a moment and then nothing.

A little too long of nothing. I tried to peek around the raised hood, but it blocked nearly every inch of the windows.

I called out to him as I pushed the door open, looking around the front of the rig with no sight of him.

I shouted out for him as I got down from the cab, almost breaking into a run when I found him just leaning against the back tires, seeing him holding some scrap of paper tightly.

I kicked my feet around awkwardly when I leaned against the tire beside him.

Dad didn’t often cry, once or twice growing up, but this was a close second with him looking so frustrated.

I caught sight of the paper he had, the same one we’d gotten several days back. One id wrestled with the thought that I should have burned it when I’d first read it.

The men of the family on either my mother's or my father's side didn’t have a habit of sticking around. Same for Dad.

That letter was from his own father, trying to get back in touch with him after nearly his whole life of missing out. And, of course, around the time he was about to kick it. Death always had that way of making you regretful, especially with a son you’d abandoned 40 years ago.

I knew the story by now. He’d met the guy when he was 17. First time meeting a distant father that had left his mother first chance he got. And with not even a handshake, he was out of his life again.

Dad was in the same boat when his time came. 20-something with a kid on the way with my mother, fresh out of high school with a kid they hadn’t planned for and had no idea what they were going to do with. She was a high school dropout, and he was about to enter the military. Would anyone have blamed him if he’d taken off too and never looked back?

He would have.

And after a few tours he’d never talked about either, here we were, on the way to visit a dad that had never cared. On just about the last day we had with the truck.

I had to push everything away as best I could as I spoke up.

“Dad. Do you even want to be here?” I asked through those few moments of silence.

He gave it a thoughtful look like he was surprised I even had to ask before he held the letter up, reading it over again.

He balled it up in his hands entirely and let it fall to the ground.

“No.”

Dad took hold of my shoulder as he pulled me up and back into the cab we went. “But I know where I do wanna be.”

He got us back on the road and took us off on a highway that led far away from the one to Virginia until I saw a few signs all heading to Indiana. And the road behind us disappeared.

————————————————————

June 9th.

Dad pulled the truck down an unfamiliar road until we had to walk it the rest of the way, coming to a few different tombstones lined perfectly. He said he hadn’t been here since before I was born. Maybe even before then.

We walked through flower-filled rows until we came to one in particular, with Dad placing his hand on the stone and brushing away some dust as he sorrowfully looked at it.

“Hi, dad…” He said as we kneeled by it.

Dad gave my shoulder a clasp, and I placed my hand on the tablet with him.

“Edward ‘Ted‘ Outlaw.” The man that had married my grandmother and adopted him. He had wanted to, before he’d passed. Who’d raised him to be the man that had stayed for his own son,

Dad didn’t need to see a father who had never wanted him. He was here with the man that had.

It was a different kind of silence now. Not the awkward kind it had been. It was solemn and thoughtful as that little barrier through the years started to dissolve.