Wildflowers
As Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” drifted loudly over the radio, I felt the strangestcontentment settle over me. The sun was bright enough I had to squint even behind my big, black, knockoff sunglasses and the wind blew wispy strands of hair all around myface.I looked over at my mom, who was filing her nails and bobbing her head to thesong with a smile. In the rearview mirror I could see my grandma smile as she mouthedthe words and focused on whatever it was she was crocheting. Beside her, my great-grandma was brushing and talking to her tiny little dog, who for once wasn’t driving mecompletely insane.We’d had quite the adventure up to now and as surprising as it was for me, Iwasn’t ready for it to end. Noticing the exit coming up, I smiled and rememberedarguing over this very exit on our way through, not so long ago.As I slowed to take the exit, I noticed the surprised gasp of my mom and then thetitter of my grandma in the back seat. Checking their expressions, I saw the hopeful andhappy excitement they must have had as young girls. That was just enough to remind mehow much we had all changed in the last two weeks.We were all so much alike yet still, so different, just girls at heart trying to carveour own ways through life. At least now, I thought, we realized how more than anything,we were not alone. If one had a daughter and raise her on her own, she would never really be alone.
At this moment, with smiles on our faces, the wind in our hair, turning down aworn gravel road toward a field of wildflowers, we were all still young and free.
Chapter One
Driving toward the setting sun, my nerves were frazzled, my mother and her teenage attitude radiated from the seat beside me. My grandmother was in the back, stillgoing on and on about the field of wildflowers she’d remembered from her girlhood, her mother, my great-grandmother snored loudly in the seat beside her while the dog, thedemon dog she called Miss Minnie, jumped at the window in frantic barks at every passing car.I’d just said, for the hundredth time, that we weren’t making any more pit stops.It had already taken us over ten hours to make it just over three hundred miles. I wastired, I was annoyed, and I just wanted to get to our hotel and sleep. When my grandmastarted talking hours ago about the field of wildflowers she remembered stopping off atwhen she was a girl, we had briefly thought about stopping and eating there. A picnic,she suggested.After stopping more times than I ever imagined possible for rests, for stretching,for getting the blood flowing in old bodies, for the stupid little dog that wined and yappedand had already puked and peed all over the place, there was
no
way I was about todetour another thirty miles on a gravel road she hadn’t seen in decades.
No way
. I’d setmy foot down and now my mom thought I was being overly harsh and said so with wordsand other more annoying child-like mannerisms. My grandma didn’t seem to hear me asshe went on and on with the story of how they’d gotten lost when she was a girl and
found it by accident. My great grandmother was oblivious to the entire conversation and before she nodded off, kept asking how long until we were home.
Home.
I wished I were at home, in my little studio apartment, miles and milesaway from all of them with my fluffy red couch and soft velvety cushions, smelling mystrawberry flavored candles and staring at my blank wall of a canvas, that after almostfive years of living there, I’d still yet to set paint to.I tried not to dwell on the fact that I had spent the entire day in a chaotic uproar with three, singularly annoying woman and an evil, mangy mutt. Gritting my teeth, Isped past the exit and tried not to feel guilty about it. I also tried not to notice thedisappointed look on my grandmother’s face as I pushed the gas a little harder and turnedup the radio still spouting her choice of Neil Diamond in my petty way of saying,
“I win.”So much for guilt
, I thought as I shrank down in my seat a little. My mom justshook her head and pulled out her nail file again, swiping angrily at each fingernail.
Howdid I get myself into this mess?
I asked myself, trying not to let her attitude get to me…anymore than it already had, that is.I blew out a deep breath at that thought. What
was
I thinking? A road trip withmy annoyingly young, free spirited, Barbie doll of a mother, my babbling, know-it-all,tell you the same story again as if you’d never heard it a hundred times beforegrandmother and my aging, dementia setting in, owner of the world’s most annoying littledog great-grandmother.I sighed as I realized I hadn’t been thinking of much more than a little break frommy life in Chicago. A few days away to just breathe and not dwell on the
real
reason I’dleft.
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