Car talk

 While she packs the car, I check the weather. Though it won't change our path any, my heart is lighter knowing we won’t have to contend with snow or rain. 

Spring break seemed to sneak up on us this year, and now it’s over. 

At least it is over for our college student.

The days off from her school never align with the days her brother receives from her old alma mater, still, we manage to make the most of her time.

We binged on her presence. From family meals to family marathons in front of the television, watching all of the one-hour shows that she’s denied herself until we could all sit side-by-side on the same couch. 

Her life, she notes not unhappily, resembles the outward contours of adulthood. 

She has done all the dutiful things time doesn’t permit during her regular semester. She’s scheduled appointments with doctors and dentists. She’s managed to squeeze in a shift or two of waiting tables to free up some extra income. She meets up with a friend, and takes her brother to school, just like in the old days when she was a kid. 

This time is such a gift. Each minute is precious for its rarity, though I must admit I have not conferred the mantle of adulthood to my firstborn, most likely because our first moments together feel more like recent memory than ancient history. 

I pull out of the driveway and turn right. I follow instructions the map reader calls out, though I think I have driven the route enough times to remember. But I may never put trust in myself when technology so freely offers the comfort of assurity.

No one likes getting lost except in thought or conversation. Neither of which I would expect as we make this commute.

Especially once she asks if she can play music. 

I imagine our conversation will ebb now. I will ask “Who’s singing,” and she will answer a name I do not recognize nor can retain long enough in my memory to retrieve if the song shuffles back within the hour. 

Soon, I was surprised to be wrong. The volume stays low while she directs lines of thought my way. 

Each thought intersects another, knitting the strands of news, secrets, and ideas into a nubbly cloth. Overall, I feel the warmth of her trust. 

I’d like to tell her, but she starts another ride down memory lane. We are back in the car, me driving while she and two friends in the back seat dish about about their lives.

They speak as if we are not merely divided by a generation or two but by an invisible soundproof partition.

Oh, how I love the commute. How a car can’t seem to contain or corral any particular audience. 

Hours pass like minutes. 

By the time we arrive at our destination, we are quiet. I circle the block and cross my fingers, hoping the parking gods will smile down on me so that time can stand still long enough for me to help her ferry bags of books and clean laundry up five flights to her dorm room.

Alas, I must double park and wait for her to complete the circuit twice so as not to risk the inconvenience of a tow.

Finally, she is back and ready for hugs and “see ya next time.”

She knows how much I hate goodbyes.