avah dodson

Traffic

She’s finally asleep.

That’s the only thought that registers in my head as I peer wearily into the rearview mirror. Sarah’s chin lolls against her collarbone. She’s snoring softly,completely conked out. Thank Jesus.

For the past thirty minutes, my ears had been violated by endless streams of are we there yet? are we there yet? mixed in with I’m hungry and I’m bored, and the occasional where are we going again? to spice things up a bit. It was my fault, really, that I forgot to plug in her iPod before we left, but I hadn’t planned for the hour-long traffic we’re currently sitting in on a Tuesday afternoon. Who the hell has somewhere to be on a Tuesday afternoon?

A lot of people, apparently. Me included.

I drum my thumbs against the wheel, focusing as hard as I can on the Subaru Forester in front of me, like that’ll get it to move. I push away all the thoughts of places I need to be, things we need to get to, before it drives me nuts. But the silence in the car helps, because it means Sarah’s asleep for the first time in a month.

We thought it was normal, at first, for a six-year-old to come to our room every night telling us she couldn’t fall asleep. She’s a kid; kids do that. But nothing worked—not the endless picture books we read to her, not the lullabies she’d slept to as a baby, not those star-constellation projections on her ceiling. And it hurt her, too. She was scared to fall asleep. Something about her dreams… I don’t know. We emailed back and forth with a doctor who said it was probably just anxiety—she started school last month, after all. We took his advice about melatonin, but she would wake up as soon as it wore off. 

Finally, it seems, she’s hit the lights out of sheer exhaustion. I knew it would have to get to her sometime, and this is good, really good. Maybe this is all she needed, and she’ll be well rested when she wakes up and not afraid of dreaming anymore. I look at the traffic with new eyes: now it’s a good thing, more time for her to rest before we get to our destination. I look over at her again. There’s a tiny line of drool hanging from her lip. It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen.

Good job, Sar. Sweet dreams.

And then the stupid fucking Subaru in front of me lets out the loudest, longest honk I’ve ever heard, making me jump out of my skin. I bite back a curse, wishing I could honk back but not wanting to wake up—

“Dad?”

—Sarah.

Fuck.

“Hey, sweetie,” I say, my fists clenching the steering wheel so hard they start to lose feeling. “Sorry about that… just go back to sleep, okay?”

Sarah’s eyebrows furrow together, and she shakes her head quietly, eyes big. “I can’t.”

“Try,” I encourage in a soothing voice. Inside I’m fuming. Sarah could’ve been asleep for another hour, or more. This could’ve been the solution to all our problems. I glare at the car ahead.

What an asshole.

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I’ve forgotten how nerve-racking traffic is.

I can’t stop tapping the steering wheel as the car in front of me slowly moves forward an inch. One more inch, and I’ll be able to move forward without seeming like I’m rude for being too close to their tailgate. One more inch toward the exit, then I can be out of this hellhole.

This was supposed to be a ten-minute trip, but of course Tuesday afternoon traffic had to make an appearance and now my heart is racing. I was never supposed to be on the highway for this long; that was my promise to myself.

Just ten minutes. I’ll get in the car, drive through the neighborhood, get on the highway for five, and come back. Easy-peasy.

But no. Because now it’s been fifteen and my hands would be shaking if I wasn’t tapping out the tune to whatever random pop song is stuck in my head today.

At least it’s daylight. I don’t think I could’ve gotten in the car if it was night. Too similar to that day—too similar to the darkness, the blinding lights, the feeling of control being wrenched from my hands.

I hadn’t even done anything wrong. They’d told me the driver who’d hit me had been drunk, but I never did know who he was. I don’t really want to. I’m reminded every time I look at the scars decorating my legs like silver ribbons, all the little white criss-crossing lines. Reminded every time I see my mom’s Subaru in the garage as she takes it out to work, the same flash of fear going through me every time she pulls out of the driveway that she won’t come back, like I didn’t.

It’s my mom’s car that I’m driving now, and it was her urging that convinced me to get behind the wheel again after almost a year. Funny that I ended up being the reluctant one, because I know that getting that call from the hospital, in the middle of the night, had broken her almost as much as it broke me.

Almost.

But she told me to go out of the house today, try driving again. I would say she’s gotten sick of me living in her house because my apartment was too far away from work to walk, but I know she hasn’t. Maybe a year ago, but now she holds every second we see each other like a priceless glass—close to her body and with white, tightened fingers.

And maybe my nerves are through the roof right now, but… I’m okay. I’m in control. It’s daytime, it’s just a little traffic, and I’m about to be on the exit. This is the first step—the beginning of the end.

Just as I’m about to edge my car off the highway, the guy next to me shoots forward, barging into my line. Panic blazes through my body, cold fire; I lurch forward, the seat belt cutting into my neck, memories of flashing lights and careening cars bursting behind my eyelids. My hand is on the horn before I realize it, pressing down in an attempt to ground me.

Then it’s over. The sharp sound of the horn cuts through the haze of white lights in my vision, and the car merges into the next line without hitting me. I calm down, taking my hand off the horn, my body shaking.

It’s fine, I tell myself, though my hands are still too cold, my pulse still too loud in my ears. It was just a rude driver. 

What an asshole.

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I swear, God made traffic to torture us.

Traffic and creating the only children’s dance school in the district a thirty-minute ride from Hayview. Thirty minutes that are going to be forty soon because of all this stupid Tuesday afternoon traffic, which is going to be the death of me because Kai’s recital starts in exactly thirty, and I can’t be late. I can’t. I’ve already missed two; this is the last one of the season, and he’s been practicing for months. 

It’s always blown my mind how this kid found his passion so quickly. Especially because he’s from my gene pool—I’m thirty-five and still have no idea what the hell I want to do with my life. Right now, my main focus is raising Kai, which is why I took the office job at the tech company even though I hate tech. Having to get up at five every morning and never seeing Kai kills me a little. I hate that I’m not always there for him; I hate that my boss is an ass who refused to let me take the afternoon off to see my son’s dance recital. Who cares if I’ve already used up my ETO for this month? My boss, apparently, which is why I’m practically hitting the tailgate of the person in front of me so I can merge; I’m on my lunch break and, if he realizes I’m not actually on my way to the sandwich shop, he’ll fire me on the spot.

I’m not usually an aggressive driver. I try to be kind on the road to set an example for Kai. But I’m definitely toeing the line now, just because of how short I am on time. I have to make it. If I have to look into Kai’s wide, child-big eyes again and tell him I didn’t get to see him play the Sugar Plum Princess again, something inside me that’s been stretched too thin is going to break.

Kai deserves a better father than me. He deserves a much better life than the tiny apartment we have and the father who leaves every morning before he wakes up. I do the best I can, but that stops mattering when the best I can do isn’t enough. Since Maria left… well, I’m at least thankful it was when Kai was young. He doesn’t have any memories of her, which is good. Memories, when they become our only records of the past, turn sharp and heavy. Sometimes the lack of them can be a blessing. To him, Maria is nothing but silent whispers, soft hands, the echo of a voice he will never be able to put to a face, and I thank God for that every day.

So damn me if I miss another of Kai’s recitals. Too many white suburban Karens have asked with beady eyes why a boy is playing a girl’s role and why a boy is in dancing school at all, and I need to be there to clap loudly enough to hurt their ears and cheer enough that they get the message to fuck off.

Kai can be whoever, whatever, he wants. The kid could tell me he wanted to be a banana, and I’d help him paint his body yellow. I’m not in any position to put limits on his world. The only thing I want is to be in it.

On that note, I see my opening and slam on the gas, cutting off some rando in a Subaru Forester to merge. Rude, but now that I’m out of the flow of traffic, I might be able to make it in time for the recital and get back before my boss notices I’m gone. With any luck, he’ll cut me some slack if I’m a few minutes late, but who am I kidding? He probably delights in my suffering. 

What an asshole.

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