On the Way Read online

  I had spoken with Grandma over the phone every so often after she moved away, but I hadn’t seen her in over a year. There was no light switch that I could feel, so I left my bags at the top of the steps. The humming got louder, the air smelled like roses, and the quivering of a candle flame ahead got angrier, waving back and forth.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I saw Grandma's shadow, long and thin like stretched gum, flattened against the wall. I couldn’t tell what was her and what was her shadow.

  “Grandma,” I whispered, taking a few steps towards her. She was kneeling before a tiny basement window. The candle, thick and short, stood next to a picture of Mom in a frame so large it seemed like the photo had shrunk behind the glass.

  I realized that only Grandma’s lips were moving as her fingers hurried the rosary through the transitions. I don’t know how long I stood there. A door slammed and the lights in the driveway momentarily flooded the basement. Grandma kept on praying. Her red dress matched the red candle, the clear beads of the rosary, pink next to her nightgown. The picture of Mom in a cheap gold frame that showed scrapes of black plastic behind it.

  Then we were in darkness once more. After my eyes adjusted, I saw Mom moving in the candlelight. When Grandma neared the large, metal cross that hung at the end of the rosary, through the humming I heard her say, “Adriana.”

  Grandma got up and flipped on the switch over her bed. I shut my eyes.

  When she realized I was standing there, she began to cry. Her body shook as she sat on the edge of her twin bed, her feet covered in enormous faded black slippers that used to be my grandpa’s. Grandma had bags and bags under her eyes. Her body was fragile like paper.

  “I pray every day that your mother comes back to us,” she murmured, her eyes wet and her weak hands in mine. She hugged me, and her tears poured. She said Mom’s name over and over while I stared at that picture behind the smeared glass, and waited for it to move again.

  “Selma, I know you didn’t want to come, but I’m happy you’re here.” She took a blanket and pillow from the closet.

  “I’m really tired,” I said, but I wasn’t really. I just didn’t want to talk about it.

  Grandma snored the whole night while I lay on a cot that stank like mold. I was supposed to be back in Guate, in Tia Blanca’s house, so that when Mom came home she’d see that I had been waiting for her. I wanted to hug her and kiss her and have her stroke my hair and make me laugh by saying I was taking too many pictures. I was supposed to be there, with a hot cup of café con leche and a pastel de fresa, her favorite, that she savored because in the States they weren’t as delicious and fresh. Instead I was lying next to my snoring grandma, thousands of miles away.

  I watched Tia Carmen make eggs for lunch. Grandma was praying again downstairs. The rumble from the trucks that passed outside on the main street rattled the house a bit.

  “Can you get the orange juice?” Tia Carmen asked. I got up from the table and walked over to the fridge. A black and white picture hung from the door: little kids in spotless shorts and shirts and dresses, volcanoes in the back.

  “That’s your mom, right there.” Tia Carmen pointed at the girl in an oversized dress. “And that cute baby she’s holding is me.” She turned away again and the eggs sputtered in the pan. Mom looked happy, all the kids did.

  “I don’t have any kids 'cause I never wanted any,” she said, setting two plates of eggs on the table. We sat down. “That being said, Selma, you can stay here till we figure all this out. Your mom and I were close once, but not for many years, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love her.” She grabbed her fork and played with the eggs. I did the same.

  “Your Tia Blanca told me how you didn’t want to leave. How you think she’s still alive. You need to accept that she’s gone. They would have found her by now.” She took a sip of her orange juice. Her long hair was frizzy at the ends. “Your mom’s landlord sent over some of your stuff. It’s in the garage. He said he sold the furniture for the rent money you guys owed him for the time you were in Guate.”

  After she left to run some errands and Grandma went down for a nap, I went into the garage and found a few boxes with Adriana scrawled across in red marker. They were mainly full of her clothes and some jewelry. I also found the album that was only going to be of us. We had planned to fill it with pictures from our trip.

  That night, Tia Carmen came home to find a letter in the mailbox. She opened it in front of me and then quickly stuffed it in her purse. She glanced at me and forced a smile. While she slept, I did something Mom would have grounded me for. I went into her purse and found the crumpled letter. I took it into the bathroom and while running the sink, discovered it was an article from one of those Guatemalan newspapers. A note from Tia Blanca that said, “Carmen, this is the one I was telling you about. They have found more. Not her, though.”

  The paper was already turning brown. It took me twice as long to read in Spanish, but it said bodies of women had been found in a rural part of Guatemala. The picture showed cops standing over a raised ivory sheet. The woman they found had blonde hair. I stuffed it back in the purse. That night when I had a nightmare, Grandma hummed and caressed my head till I fell back asleep.

  A month later, Tia Carmen enrolled me in the high school down the street. By then, she had purchased me my own twin bed that I put in the basement. At night Grandma told me stories of Mom growing up. How when she met my dad she was happy, and how devastated she was when he left us both.

  “She loved him, but she loved you more. Know that,” Grandma said once.

  I made a few friends in high school, but caught myself lying when they asked about my mom.

  “Her company has her working in Guatemala right now,” I said and the other kids thought that was cool.

  “You must miss her,” a girl told me once. It took everything not to cry.

  Tia Blanca began to call me every other week.

  “Please forgive me,” she said in our first call.

  “It’s alright, Tia,” I said. Her voice was like Guate speaking to me.

  I developed the last pictures Mom and I took together in Guate and put them in the album. Often, I would look at them while going through her suitcase filled with her clothes. Both stayed right next to my bed where I could reach out and feel them.

  Tia Carmen kept getting articles in the mail. I could tell when she’d get one because she’d get nervous and rush into the house, throw the rest of the mail on the counter and scurry into her room, clutching her purse. Later I’d find ripped pieces of newspaper in the trashcan, too shredded to make anything out.

  When Tia Carmen wasn’t working two shifts, we’d all eat breakfast together. On Sunday we’d go to church, and even though none of us said so, I knew we were all praying for Mom.

  “I pray she comes back soon,” I said once in the car driving back home. I was in the back seat and saw Tia Carmen and Grandma glance at one another.

  “Selma, she’s gone. It’s been a long time,” Tia Carmen said, and looked at me through the rearview mirror.

  “Grandma, you still think she’s coming back, don’t you?”

  Grandma lowered her head to her hands.

  Tia Carmen pulled the car over. The kids in the park screamed and laughed and chased each other around the playground.

  “How about we make a deal, OK?” Tia Carmen asked, her body twisted, putting her hand on my knee. “I’ll stop saying she’s gone and you stop saying she’s coming back. It’s not wrong that we think what we think, Selma, but we only make each other feel worse.” And that was the last time either of us spoke about that.

  For Mother’s Day, Grandma, Tia Carmen, and I had breakfast at a restaurant that served pancakes with so much whipped cream it toppled over.

  “Your mom would be so proud of how you are doing in school,” Grandma said. “I miss her,” Tia Carmen said. I had never heard her say it before.

  I gave Grandma and Tia Carmen each a c
ard. Grandma cried and Tia Carmen hugged me. I put the one I had for Mom in between the sleeves of our album.

  I dreamt with Mom often. Sometimes the dreams were of us on top of a volcano, swimming in lava that tickled our feet and made us laugh, but most times in my dreams I searched for her in darkness.

  A little over a year of living without Mom, when the trees rasped from the harsh winds right outside the window and the candle that lit up Mom’s picture went still, Tia Carmen said, “Selma.” My name reached the bottom step of the basement before she did. She stumbled down the stairs and tumbled down beside me on my bed and began to sob.

  “They found her, Selma. She’s dead.”

  Grandma stopped praying and turned to both of us, still on her knees. She began to wail. The rosary slipped from her hands. Tia Carmen reached out to touch me, but I pulled away and grabbed the picture.

  There behind the frame she gazed at me, submerged by my endless tears. Even the rose seemed to float up to the glass. I traced it.

  Mom was gone.

  NEXT IN LINE

  Lloyd started working at the DMV right after high school. He’d wanted to study to be some kind of engineer, but when his mom moved out west to be with her fifth husband, he took the first job that was offered to him so he wouldn’t have to go with her. That was twenty years ago.

  Lloyd began as the person who set out the applications and made sure the seats were lined up just right. Then he became the person who took the pictures, then the person who sat in the front and dealt with people who were angry because of the long wait. Now, he administered the driving tests. And after a few years of near minor accidents (mainly with teenagers who would bite their nails while forgetting to signal), he had succumbed to the reality that this was the way it would always be. He’d work at the DMV 'til the day he hit retirement or until the day he died, whichever came first.

  Lloyd followed a strict process for each test. He walked once around the car to inspect brake lights, headlights, and turn signals, frowning slightly, as if observing some kind of art he didn’t quite understand. He took note of the car's cleanliness, determining if he could see the reflection of his legs and feet in the paint. Then he’d open the passenger door and check the seat. He learned early on that people didn’t necessarily keep their seats clean. The test usually took less than ten minutes, which was just about as long as Lloyd could stand. In most vehicles, Lloyd’s knees met the glove box.

  “Hey, Lloyd, praying for no Mini Coopers today?” his co-workers teased.

  “That’s very clever. I should write that one down, but I don’t need to. You’ll use the same joke tomorrow,” Lloyd said.

  The test took place on a course built on the DMV lot. It had a stop sign and a yield sign, a left- and right-hand turn, a track that went in a loop, and of course a parallel parking spot. It was short, but still allowed Lloyd to determine whether or not to pass a driver.

  As the driver, young or old, man or woman, put his or her hands on the wheel, Lloyd would say, “Proceed,” without much emotion, and then wouldn’t say anything else.

  The driver would either do a decent job and pass, or fail miserably, and it was all the same to Lloyd. He was there to do a job, to collect a paycheck, so he could go home and be alone.

  On a Tuesday morning, right as the thunderstorm warning was announced, Lloyd prepared for his first driver of the day. He scanned down the list in his hand and yelled, “Melanie Lorenzo!”

  In front of him stood the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her sleeveless short summer dress revealed tiny beauty marks like freckles blossoming on her skin. Her hair was long and straight, dark as charcoal, and she wore thick-framed, purple glasses. Lloyd gazed at her and signaled for her to follow him outside.

  He didn’t hear a woman yell that there was no damn way she failed the written test. He didn’t hear a baby crying while his mother waited in line, didn’t hear the click, click, click of the pictures being taken at the booth, or the phones ringing. He heard only the slight smack of Melanie’s flip-flops and the clink of what must have been coins shifting in her purse, as if she carried a loaded piggy bank inside.

  She walked up to him and grinned. “You’re probably wondering why it took a thirty-five-year-old so long to learn how to drive, huh? Everyone else waiting for the test isn’t even old enough to drink.” She laughed. “I mean, good morning.”

  Lloyd watched her lips move. He thought they were the color of raspberries. He hoped he looked as young to her as she did to him.

  “Let’s proceed,” he said, gripping the clipboard tightly. Had he still been married, his ring would have dug into his skin. “Which car is yours?”

  Melanie pointed to a small blue car with a white stripe along the side. He couldn’t see his reflection in the car, but that didn’t matter right now. She dug around in her purse and pulled out her keys. They were attached to a keychain of a topless woman swimming in blue water that matched the blue car.

  “Dumb Peter. It’s his car. He’s waiting in the coffee shop across the street.”

  “Peter is your dumb brother?” Lloyd asked, and then cringed. He was hoping Melanie wasn’t holding her boyfriend’s keys.

  “Peter is my friend, and not nearly as dumb as my brother.”

  Lloyd didn’t know if he was supposed laugh at this.

  Lloyd didn’t even check the inside of the car. Instead, he dropped into the passenger seat and as Melanie settled inside the car, he noticed a tattoo that peeked from underneath her dress just below her shoulder. It looked like a sun in varied shades of gray. Lloyd despised tattoos—he thought them unwomanly. But Melanie’s tattoo was beautiful. He wanted to lean over and look at it more closely.

  Big dark clouds began to gather in the sky as Melanie placed her hands at ten and two. “My mom never learned to drive because she was in a bad car accident when she was little and was too afraid. Growing up, we took the bus everywhere or just walked. She always said driving was too dangerous, but I’ve decided it’s time I learned. Sometimes there’s more danger in being afraid, right?” Melanie smiled. “Sorry. I think I’m just a little nervous.”

  Lloyd said, “Don’t worry. You’ll do great,” and Melanie smiled again. This was more than Lloyd had said to a driver in all his years at the DMV. “Proceed.”

  Melanie grinned at him. Lloyd wanted to kiss her.

  Melanie put the car in drive and crept forward. She glanced to her left, then her right, then her left, then her right. There was no other car on the course.

  “Just go straight here, Miss Lorenzo,” said Lloyd.

  Melanie pressed the gas and approached the stop sign. Lloyd kept his eyes on her.

  He was in awe of her—the darkness of her hair, the beauty mark beneath her lip.

  The car stopped.

  “So far, so good, Miss Lorenzo,” Lloyd said.

  Lloyd hadn’t dated anyone since his ex-wife. She had worked at the DMV. She made him feel special, and for a few years he made her feel special, too. Then one day, there was someone else and she left. Since then, it had been difficult for him to meet anyone new.

  “My wife left me,” he blurted.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Melanie said. “I’m divorced too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lloyd replied. He wanted to reach over and grab her hand.

  “I’m not,” Melanie said, and made a perfect left turn. “Neither Bill or I were happy, but neither of us would do what we both knew needed to happen. It’s like we had to wait to see who would go first.”

  Lloyd nodded. He watched her click on the right turn signal. Her fingers were long and thin, her nails shiny, unpainted, so he could see the pink of her skin underneath.

  As Melanie made the turn, she said, “So, finally one day I had enough. It’s not like either of us are bad people. We just weren’t the right fit for each other.”

  Melanie looked over to read Lloyd’s nametag. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Lloyd H. OK? You seem a litt
le sad.” She briefly took one of her hands off the wheel and placed it on top of Lloyd’s.

  Lloyd felt her soft skin, the warmth of it on top of his.

  It started to rain. Melanie returned her hand to the wheel and turned on the wipers. They squealed back and forth as she made the loop around the course. Lloyd wished the test would never end.

  When she came to the parallel parking spot, Melanie sighed. “OK, I’ve been practicing this a lot. Let’s see how I do, Lloyd.”

  She backed into the parking space without a problem. Lloyd noticed a loose strand of her hair that fell near her lips, her dress rising a little bit above her knee, a glimpse of her thigh.

  “Lloyd, look how good I parked, and in the rain! You’re the expert—I’m good, no?” Melanie laughed and brushed his arm. Lloyd wanted to grab her hand, to feel it on top of his one more time.

  “Miss Lorenzo,” Lloyd began, and she told him to call her Melanie. “Melanie, very well. I have to tell you something.” He took a deep breath.

  He wanted to tell her he wanted to take her out. Anywhere. Somewhere they could talk, where he could get to know all about her: her tattoo, her friend Peter, how in the world her husband could let her go. He wanted to tell her how she made him aware of something he’d needed to understand, which was that he didn’t want to be alone. “You passed,” he said.

  Melanie applauded. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought! I heard the driving test was difficult, but you were really supportive. Thanks.”

  Inside the DMV, Lloyd watched Melanie have her picture taken. She stood at the counter for a moment when her new driver's license was handed to her. She rubbed it and smiled. When she looked across the room, her eyes met his and she waved, holding up the license.

  “Remember what I said, Lloyd H. Sometimes it’s just not the right fit,” she called out, sliding the license into her purse. Melanie walked out the door, smiling to herself.

  Lloyd picked up his clipboard and yelled, “Thomas Kowalski!” A short man with graying hair stood. His scuffed dress shoes squeaked against the floor as he made his way to Lloyd. His keys shook in his hand.