Page 13 of Hauling Ashe

“Consider it my lunch break.”

“It’s hardly ten.” He continues to mumble while I’m exiting the car. After crossing the road, I enter an old fire station, which houses the museum. Wandering the aisles between display cases, I scan the memorabilia of the most iconic main street through the States—metal road signs, rusty tin cans of oil and gas, preserved menus, black and white photographs, toys and knick-knacks. The numerous mementos are too much to absorb and knowing an impatient man awaits me in the car, I don’t take the time I might have to read every notice and explanation.

Instead, I imagine families with a mom, a dad, and two kids riding along these classic roads to their vacation destinations. Life has veered from that picture-perfect image, not only since the decommissioning of Route 66 but also since the opening of it. With the rise in divorces, women in the workforce, the extended longevity of life, and the expense of children, the world has shifted in what it considers the ‘normal’ family.

As a female divorcée, I’m marked as a single mother and am breaking that antiquated norm. I was also raised by one. I’m a working mother as well, and…gasp…own a successful business. None of these things are as unheard of today as they’d been fifty, sixty, seventy years ago, and it’s incredible to consider it’s only been just over fifty years since these changes in the familial structure occurred.

My mind continues to wander, imagining a young couple on their honeymoon, traveling along the highway as they start their new life together. Hopes and dreams fill their heads and their hearts. How long ago that had been for Adam and me. How young and disillusioned I was when I was in that newly married state. How I had loved my husband at first. My disappointment in him shouldn’t still weigh heavy on me and perhaps it’s a reflex, one in which I continue to blame myself for him straying in our marriage.

Why wasn’t I ever enough for him? Why hadn’t he loved me like I had loved him?

“What are you staring at?” The gruff male voice behind me startles me, and while my hand comes to my chest, I don’t spin to face him. Instead, I catch his reflection in the glass enclosure housing history and preserving a time long past.

Why do we encapsulate memories?

“Just taking it all in. There’s so much to look at.”

He huffs. “Looks like a bunch of junk.”

I twist at his assessment at the same time he leans forward, narrowing his eyes to better see something within the case. He stands close enough that his arm brushes mine and I inhale, catching the scent of him, spicy and wild, which surprises me. Amid the musty fragrance of the museum, my senses wreak havoc, and my imagination pulls me off to the side of a road, one lined with large, lush evergreens. In my head, my young honeymoon couple scrambles into the backseat, eager to touch one another, desperate with their mouths on each other, before clothing is lowered and body parts connected, rocking that parked car under perpetually green trees.

Tucker turns his head in my direction while this montage plays out in my mind. His face is close as he leans beside me. His eyes meet mine and all my thoughts merge into him and me in the same position. His suit pants lowered. My shorts removed. Our centers connecting.

I lick my lips, wondering what it would taste like to kiss him and just as quickly wondering where the thought comes from as I don’t even like this man. Sure, he’s attractive and I bet his rocket is bigger than the one the Gemini Giant was holding, but our mouths will not meet.

Two roads diverged… Our paths and body parts shall not connect.

Still, Tucker’s gaze holds mine as he slowly stands taller. “Why do you like all this stuff?”

I shrug, unable to find an appropriate explanation let alone coherent thoughts with him staring at my mouth like he is.

“I’m coming to hate that shrug,” he mutters under his breath, and he wrinkles his nose as I’ve witnessed him do several times. Is the musty smell too much for him? Or do I smell bad? His nearness is too much for me, and my reaction is something I don’t understand. Forcing myself, I take a step to the right and wander down the remainder of the aisle. As I pass case after case, I decide I don’t want to see the artifacts as much as I want to experience what I can of the open road.

Tucker stays behind me, keeping his distance and his hands in his pants pockets. While we’ve driven, he removed his suit jacket and rolled his sleeves to his elbows. He must be warm, and I wish he would relax. Shadowing me, he makes me nervous.

As we near a display case for the Arizona portion of the trip, Tucker pauses, and I turn back in his direction. My gaze tries to follow his, but I have no idea what he’s looking at on the shelves behind glass.

“Is there something about Arizona you’re excited to see?” I ask.

“Nope,” he says, popping the -p as he does. Nodding at him, I glance back toward the case, scanning the exhibit once more in wonder. There’s something in the display case about Winslow, Arizona which sounds familiar, but I don’t understand why. I’ve never been there.

“We can go,” I state, disappointed in yet another thing on my travels. My irritation isn’t really with the trip, though, as much as my companion.

We return to the car, continuing our silence, and I pull up the GPS to recalibrate our location for directions leading south down the highway.

Near a town named Lexington, a roadside sign reads Memory Lane. The path is a strip of the original route.

“Think I can actually drive down that road?” I don’t know why I’m asking Tucker, as if he’d know. However, I don’t want to destroy anything intended to be a historical landmark. My curiosity is piqued, though. If closing my eyes and driving the strip were an option to feel the ambience of a time gone by, I would. Instead, I want my eyes wide open. No more shutting out what I can’t accept as reality in my life. I’d closed my eyes too many times in the past.

“How should I know?” Tucker states snidely from the back seat, and I ignore him as I have from the last stop to this one. Slowly, I pull forward and drive down a small strip of original road, heavy with foliage on either side of the cracked cement path.

“How did people drive those big-as-boat cars down this thing?” I ask aloud, not really wanting an answer, just expressing my thoughts. The section of road isn’t long, isn’t wide, and isn’t much, but something swells inside me. All those travelers. All those sightseers. All those hopers and dreamers. Did they make it to their destination? Did they find what they were looking for? Would I?

“Well, that was—”

“Have you never taken a road trip?” I interject over his comment, worried he’ll ruin the moment.

“I have. I just—”