ON THE WAY TO CAMP — JOY GUO
/Mama litters I-95 with sighs—at the clouds threatening rain, at me for making her drive six hours when she could be safe at home. A solar system of hives unravels on her neck. Everything a disaster. Long, dark tongues of tire treads licking the road. Yawning pothole. Joints and hinges pimpling the bridge, about to burst. The concrete under our wheels suddenly rips apart like bread. Our car plummets. Neither of us knows how to swim.
We pull over, blinkers on in defeat. Everyone swivels to look. You can’t help it. Faces pressed against smudged glass stream past us. The sky leaches blue. Mama wads her knees into her chest and moans. We’re not that far, I say, pointing at the horizon. All those other families have made it to the other side in one piece, why can’t we?
Tunnels are worse. At least a bridge gives you space to fall apart. Down there, in some massive belly, grey-damp walls pressing in, Mama trembles as hard as thunder, sobs through lips pressed like a paper cut. What’s to stop a flood from taking us all? I bite my sleeve, the inside of my cheek, the raw pink of my fingernails, to remind myself that I’m not underwater. Stay in the lane. No shoulder, no respite from the agony of inching forward, half-blind. We’re two hours late. Behind us, a relentless parade of headlights. I remember Snake, the only game on Mama’s flip phone, how we used to take turns playing, how I was really good, my coiled tail always avoiding the corners and blunt edges just in time.
At the rest stop, we don’t use the bathroom or buy hamburgers or look up the directions for the rest of the way. Instead, we eyeball the tires for errant nails. Mama unhinges the hood of our Camry, pokes around, says everything is okay in a voice full of frayed threads. She cheeks the third yellow pill of the day. Spidery fault lines around her eyes pucker. I pretend I don’t see her crying because that only makes me cry too. Instead, swallowing hard, I turn caustic. I complain that I’m missing orientation, everyone will stare at me, all the good bunk beds have probably been taken, I’ll be stuck with the one right next to the bathroom for four whole weeks, so thanks a lot.
Mama whispers sorry.
Somewhere in Maryland, I fall asleep. In my dream, I canoe, weave friendship bracelets, eat so many hot dogs I throw up during badminton. I have the best time ever. I don’t come home.
I dream I am not afraid of bridges or tunnels or of drowning, lungs aflame. The water puddling around my knees, up to my shoulders, slipping into the crevices of my ears, is warm. I’m nothing like her. I swim.
Joy Guo currently lives in Manhattan with her husband. She is a white collar and regulatory defense attorney. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Passages North, Okay Donkey, Pithead Chapel, Atticus Review, CRAFT, and SmokeLong Quarterly. You can find her on Twitter at gojiberryandtea or www.joyguowrites.com.
