The Drive Home
by Adrienne Weiss
Inside the car, I pick at a piece of leather sticking out from a hole in the empty seat next to me. The hole had started as a scratch of someone’s bored, cracked nail, and over time, years I guess, it had frayed, then come apart. One of us is always pulling or picking at the hole in this seat. Maybe we are trying to see what will eventually be revealed if we keep at it for long enough though I’m not sure what we think we’ll find. Loose coin? Old hair elastics? The secret to the universe? Sometimes, I try to imagine a portrait taking shape out of its threads and leather shreds, but nothing ever comes together but an old, ripped-up seat. Our father’s always yelling at us to quit poking at it.
As my finger digs into the hole and its foam, I look out the window at the blur of green, the leafy overhang that embodies the broad swath of road. If I concentrate, I can catch quick glimpses of a dark window, imagine the people moving beyond it from one room to another, stepping in beat to the Dire Straits song that crackles through the car’s speakers. Now my mother’s saying something, and my father’s hand is quick to turn down the volume. I lose the beat, keep digging at the hole.
The houses are spread apart, set far from the road. There’s not enough time to take in their facades. Behind them, to the south, is the vast expanse of Lake Ontario, and beyond it, the shores of Rochester, New York. I think this lake might be listed in the top twenty of the world’s greatest lakes. Someone in my geography class did their midterm presentation on it, and I think that’s what they said. I strain my eyes, wait for a gap in the trees for just a slice of lake to flicker at me.
“Just leave it be,” my father mutters, as he turns right onto Sumach Street, leaving the lake behind. There’s always something to leave be. The volume on the music. The sensitive matters of a daughter. The problem at the bank. The questionable character of a potential son-in-law. I absent-mindedly pull too hard on a thread in the upholstery and have to cough to hide the tearing sound that reverberates like the drum solo in the song now playing. Another thing to leave be. Now I have to convince my mother that nothing’s wrong. That no, I don’t have a tickle in my throat and stop making something out of nothing.
The air in the car tenses, and I’m impatient for us to just get home, so I can slink into my room, put on my headphones, disappear for a while the way each house disappears in the rear-view as my father turns onto our street, my mother instructing me to take a Tylenol as soon as we walk through the front door because no one can afford to get sick, not now.
This stretch, to our house, is wide open, lacking in trees. Neighbours are strewn about, sitting on deck chairs on their concrete porches or standing at open car passenger doors with their mouths hanging open, sucking in all the oxygen, and one waves now at our passing car. My mother waves back, says something to my father about how surprised she is to see this neighbour out and about. Hadn’t he just had abdominal surgery, not even a week ago? My father’s muttering about how the hell should he know.
As we pull into the driveway, the front door to our house opens and out of the darkness comes my older sister in her wedding dress, a huge smile on her bright face. My father switches off the ignition, and the song ends abruptly, leaves me longing for the next note. My mother
murmurs to herself as she steps out of the car, then says loud enough for all the neighbours to hear, “Why do you have that on?” But my sister ignores the question, swishing down the porch steps as anyone making an entrance would, pulling the veil from behind her and throwing it out in front of her, a red carpet in greeting.
I slip out of the seatbelt, let it fly back with a snap. I watch, through the back passenger window, as she runs onto the un-mown grass, her hair a mess of curlers. I watch her pull our mother and father onto the grass with her, trying to get them to dance to the sound of no music, crushing the weeds with her bare feet as she does so. My mother protests, pulls away, stays fixed on the walkway. “What are you doing?” she says, “the wedding’s not for weeks,” but my father just laughs, takes her hand in his and lets her twirl and twirl, the veil circling at her feet like a tidal wave.
The heat in the car becomes unbearable. I scramble over to the other seat, dragging bits of foam and thread with me. When I open the car door, these bits fall like confetti. My mother’s now laughing as my father does the twist, his face a grimace of pain and pleasure. Then, my sister turns to look at me. She strikes a pose, pokes at her curlers and pouts her lips. Her eyes sparkle like sunrise on lake water. She winks and beckons me out. It's the perfect portrait. It’s the portrait I will seek in my dreams years from now after she’s gone, and I’ve broken into unfixable pieces.
For now, I stand and run to the grass, fall into her open, laughing hand.
As my finger digs into the hole and its foam, I look out the window at the blur of green, the leafy overhang that embodies the broad swath of road. If I concentrate, I can catch quick glimpses of a dark window, imagine the people moving beyond it from one room to another, stepping in beat to the Dire Straits song that crackles through the car’s speakers. Now my mother’s saying something, and my father’s hand is quick to turn down the volume. I lose the beat, keep digging at the hole.
The houses are spread apart, set far from the road. There’s not enough time to take in their facades. Behind them, to the south, is the vast expanse of Lake Ontario, and beyond it, the shores of Rochester, New York. I think this lake might be listed in the top twenty of the world’s greatest lakes. Someone in my geography class did their midterm presentation on it, and I think that’s what they said. I strain my eyes, wait for a gap in the trees for just a slice of lake to flicker at me.
“Just leave it be,” my father mutters, as he turns right onto Sumach Street, leaving the lake behind. There’s always something to leave be. The volume on the music. The sensitive matters of a daughter. The problem at the bank. The questionable character of a potential son-in-law. I absent-mindedly pull too hard on a thread in the upholstery and have to cough to hide the tearing sound that reverberates like the drum solo in the song now playing. Another thing to leave be. Now I have to convince my mother that nothing’s wrong. That no, I don’t have a tickle in my throat and stop making something out of nothing.
The air in the car tenses, and I’m impatient for us to just get home, so I can slink into my room, put on my headphones, disappear for a while the way each house disappears in the rear-view as my father turns onto our street, my mother instructing me to take a Tylenol as soon as we walk through the front door because no one can afford to get sick, not now.
This stretch, to our house, is wide open, lacking in trees. Neighbours are strewn about, sitting on deck chairs on their concrete porches or standing at open car passenger doors with their mouths hanging open, sucking in all the oxygen, and one waves now at our passing car. My mother waves back, says something to my father about how surprised she is to see this neighbour out and about. Hadn’t he just had abdominal surgery, not even a week ago? My father’s muttering about how the hell should he know.
As we pull into the driveway, the front door to our house opens and out of the darkness comes my older sister in her wedding dress, a huge smile on her bright face. My father switches off the ignition, and the song ends abruptly, leaves me longing for the next note. My mother
murmurs to herself as she steps out of the car, then says loud enough for all the neighbours to hear, “Why do you have that on?” But my sister ignores the question, swishing down the porch steps as anyone making an entrance would, pulling the veil from behind her and throwing it out in front of her, a red carpet in greeting.
I slip out of the seatbelt, let it fly back with a snap. I watch, through the back passenger window, as she runs onto the un-mown grass, her hair a mess of curlers. I watch her pull our mother and father onto the grass with her, trying to get them to dance to the sound of no music, crushing the weeds with her bare feet as she does so. My mother protests, pulls away, stays fixed on the walkway. “What are you doing?” she says, “the wedding’s not for weeks,” but my father just laughs, takes her hand in his and lets her twirl and twirl, the veil circling at her feet like a tidal wave.
The heat in the car becomes unbearable. I scramble over to the other seat, dragging bits of foam and thread with me. When I open the car door, these bits fall like confetti. My mother’s now laughing as my father does the twist, his face a grimace of pain and pleasure. Then, my sister turns to look at me. She strikes a pose, pokes at her curlers and pouts her lips. Her eyes sparkle like sunrise on lake water. She winks and beckons me out. It's the perfect portrait. It’s the portrait I will seek in my dreams years from now after she’s gone, and I’ve broken into unfixable pieces.
For now, I stand and run to the grass, fall into her open, laughing hand.
Adrienne Weiss is the author of There Are No Solid Gold Dancers Anymore (Nightwood, 2014). She lives in Toronto, Canada.