Page 46 of Hauling Ashe

“Sunshine, I’d like to play this up and say that you did, drawing out the torture, but you’re looking a little green already and I don’t have it in me to torment you today. We’re good.”

“Oh…good.” Thank God. I don’t want him to lump me in with those other women, even if he no longer has his wife. I don’t want to be just another woman hitting on a hot man slipping him my room key. I’m certain I would have been disappointed. He wouldn’t have been here this morning…or even participated in a last night.

“Let’s shower and get something to eat.” The statement catches me off guard and he must sense my unease. “Unless you aren’t hungry?”

Food isn’t the issue, but the first directive implied we’d shower together which is ridiculous. Why would he shower with me? Why would he want to shampoo my hair and let me soap up his body and then allow our skin to slip and slide together? I need to clear my head of all sexual thoughts about this man when he’s been nothing but sweet toward me.

He apologized for yesterday. I accepted his gesture. He played the piano.

“No. I’m hungry. You can shower first.”

“Are you sure?” When I nod, he easily rolls in the opposite direction and slips a hand in his pants. I shouldn’t take a peek, but I can’t miss what he’s trying to disguise behind the silky fabric. It’s only morning wood, I tell myself. A phenomenon all men experience. I close my eyes again and slip lower on the bed, smoothing a hand down my wrinkled dress and wait for Tucker, trying not to picture him taking that bulge in hand, soaping himself all up and yet getting dirty in my shower.

+ + +

Shamrock is full of Route 66 nostalgia. A restored Magnolia gas station graces a street corner as the building sits on an angle next to an old hotel that had been converted to the Pioneer West Museum. The once popular Tower Plaza and U-Drop Inn Café with its iconic Conoco lettering on a tower was another inspiration in the animated movie Cars. Visually restored to its earlier glory, the location offers a modern-day charging station and I plug in the Prius when we arrive there for breakfast.

We move in slower motion this morning, or maybe that’s just me with my dull hangover. I’m not as young as I used to be, and I don’t even try to pretend I’m not hurting. Tucker found ibuprofen for me, and we seek greasy breakfast food to help soak up the alcohol still swimming in my stomach.

It won’t take us long to travel through Texas and we agree to go as far as we can into New Mexico. As I-40 covers most of the iconic Route 66, following the original path closely, we stick to the expressway and pull off where we can for attractions.

We drive through McLean, which boasts that it is the heart of Texas.

We pass a Phillips 66 gas station, which looks more like a small house, and I jump out to have my photo taken hugging yet another historic gas pump.

On our way to Amarillo, the next major city along the route, my phone rings through the car’s speakers. Because it’s Monday morning, I’m assuming the call is one of the boys before they go to work. The caller ID on the dash reads Wyatt and I press accept.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” I say more cheerful than I feel.

“Mae?” My ex-husband’s voice fills the car.

“Shit,” I mutter under my breath and feel Tucker’s head turn in my direction. “Let me pull over and take this.” I click on the hazard lights and slow to veer onto the shoulder. I’m driving this morning because Tucker admitted he needed to do a few things related to work. However, he’s sitting in the front seat beside me instead of the back where Gemma the geranium is securely buckled. As I begin to merge onto the shoulder, a firm hand takes the steering wheel and forces the car to stay on the highway.

“What the heck?” I mumble, quickly glancing over at Tucker who shakes his head. We aren’t pulling over for this, his wagging head says.

“Are you talking to yourself?” Adam snaps. I don’t respond as I click off the hazards and accelerate. I’d rather not have a conversation with Tucker listening, or any conversation with Adam for that fact. “You stole my car.”

“It’s not your car,” I argue back. “It’s Wyatt’s.” My teenage son wasn’t happy with the dad-mobile, as he called it, he received upon graduating from high school. Although the distance to Wyatt’s college wasn’t far, Adam didn’t want to drive back and forth, moving Wyatt in, or bringing him home for visits, so he bought our son transportation. I’d always been curious where Adam got the money.

“And you stole from me,” I remind him, sheepishly shifting my eyes to Tucker and back to the road. Tucker’s head takes a sharp twist in my direction. “Now we’re even,” I lie.

“I should send the cops out after you,” he threatens.

I’m immediately angry. I’m hungover. It’s Monday morning and I don’t need this old argument with him. “You wouldn’t dare, or I’ll have you in court for embezzlement.”

Adam had been stealing funds from the landscaping business and garden center, alternating between the two to disguise what he was doing—having affairs with other women. I have the financial records to prove it, and in another foolish agreement with him, I decided not to press charges. He would owe me the money. Stupid, stupid woman. It’s a miracle he kept up with child support, but as Owen turned eighteen before his senior year in high school, that ended. Adam and I are supposed to split college tuitions and the money I would earn from driving Tucker is going to cover my share of this year, at least for Owen, who will be a freshman.

The line goes silent for a second before Adam mutters, “Let’s not do this.”

“Yes, let’s not.” I pause. “You know what’s sad, Adam? It’s Monday and you just noticed I have this car.” I’d called home on Thursday evening and somehow got Adam on the line after speaking with the boys. He hadn’t even mentioned Wyatt’s car then. My eldest son wanted a new truck, but it wasn’t economical or practical. I own two for Mae’s Flowers, one of which is a beater and Wyatt prefers to drive that around town. It’s chill, he tells me which I think is code for some concept I probably don’t want to know the meaning of.

“I was busy this weekend,” Adam huffs.

I bet he was. He has a new girlfriend after the one he didn’t leave me for got tired of waiting for him. Wyatt informed me on Saturday night how he and Owen went back to my house because their father said he had out-of-town plans for the weekend. At eighteen and twenty, they were old enough to be alone, but I thought it’d be good father-son bonding time to stay at their father’s house for two weeks like they had each summer after the divorce. As my boys approached manhood, I was wrong once more about Adam.

“Adam, be a father. Step up for them.”

“I don’t need this from you,” he mocks and beside me Tucker speaks up.