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No Place to Crash (Grace)
“Careful, Gracie. This snow’s getting to be too much,” Dad growls, his eyes flicking across the road.
“Just a little longer. There has to be something up ahead.” I bite my lip, hoping to every star above that I’m right.
And it’s hard to hope when the stars are walled off behind the dense, angry clouds intent on burying us for the last hundred miles.
Oh, I’ve got all the fire under my ass a girl could ever need, but I’ll tell you one thing—I’d kill for a touch of real fire right now.
I feel a mad affection for every human being who ever shivered, scowled up at the sky, and said winter, bite me.
If only winter was the end of my worries.
The loud, ragged cough coming from my father in the passenger seat has me more nervous than the heavy snow drifting across the highway in blustery white sheets. It’s been snowing for hours.
This old truck, which had seen better days long before we left Wisconsin, has already been working overtime to pull the horse trailer up and down the rolling hills.
I’m keeping the speed low so I can try to avoid any mishaps. They’re all too likely with the sort of luck we’ve had on our journey thus far. We must’ve lost a good hour back in Minnesota, straining to change a flat.
Every time I glance at the old Ford’s dashboard, I’m expecting to see red.
A check engine light. Low oil pressure. Battery, alternator, brakes, another broken thingamajig.
Nothing would surprise me.
Still, despite being rusted up and dented, no thanks to my teenage driving skills years ago, the truck soldiers on. It’s almost like family, an old workhorse with the air of an immortal.
Only, the signs of aging are as impossible to ignore as its scabs of rust.
I know it’s a cheap metaphor for my father, who hacks up another coughing fit next to me.
Ask me how much I care about metaphors right now.
The once robust Nelson Sellers, who used to practically juggle hay bales, has shrunken the past few months. It’s not just his weight and musculature.
He slouches, even when sitting, something he always used to get after me for as a kid.
Dad’s demeanor has changed, his energy flatlining as his body limps along. His once coppery-brown hair is dull silver, and that fiery shine in his blue eyes that made him Dad is just…gone.
All depressing signs of the crushing weight we’ve shared lately.
But deep down, he’s still a Sellers. He won’t stop, and neither will I.
As long as this old Ford trudges on, so will we, all the way to Montana.
Same with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—aka Rosie and Stern—the two horses riding in the trailer behind us in my rearview mirror. I’m not sure who loves them more, Dad or me.
They were his pride and joy once, and my best friends growing up. Practically the only friends I’d had when we’d left the city for the small farm north of Milwaukee to raise pumpkins.
Yes, pumpkins.
Feels like an eternity ago now. I’d finished high school while living on the farm, moved out, went to college for interior design, and dreamed of covering pretty places in prettier ideas.
Sadly, pretty anything hasn’t been in the cards for a long time.
I watched too many dreams get demolished on that farm. And then one day, when there was nothing left but smoldering ruins, we threw together our things and hit the road while we still could.
Someday, I’ll have my freaking slice of pretty.
Even if it feels like someday might as well be in the next century with this dark, deserted road and white dunes that could swallow a person whole crowding every mile.
“Gracie,” Dad says, breathing heavy. “It’s getting damn near impassable. You’re gonna have an accident. Pull over.”
“I can’t just stop here, Dad. There’s nowhere to park.” Not without potentially trapping the truck in an icy grave, and us with it. Believe me, I would if I could. Even in my boots, my toes are frozen nubs because the heater can’t keep up with the cold air invading the cab. “I can’t make out a shoulder, let alone how deep the ditches are.”
It’s the truth, but I don’t need to say it.
Dad’s eyes aren’t that bad.
He can see the snow-covered road and the huge flakes swirling around in the beams of our headlights before splattering against the windshield and being swept away by frantic wipers.
“We’ll pull over as soon as I find a hint of civilization,” I tell him, scratching my cheek.
“There has to be a town somewhere. I checked the map a hundred miles back; I know I saw something,” he grumbles.
“Only you still read off of a paper atlas. Every phone has GPS that works most of the time, even when the service sucks.” I give him a teasing smile, but it fades just as fast when I see the look on his face.