The End of the Dirt Road

At the end of a dirt road, memories abide like ghosts that tingle the senses but cannot be expressed!

The sun had just begun to peek over the top of the steep ridges that were the outer visual limit of the self-imposed fortress the woman had finally given up and retreated to several days ago. She had been doing that more and more often these last months. Somehow, in the past, she’d always been able to push those strange thoughts, intrusions really, out of the way and stay focused on whatever the day brought to her. Hum-drum reality or crisis – it didn’t really matter much.

She stirs and hovers lightly in that place suspended between sleep and fully awake. Her dark red hair falls back against the pillow, out of her face as she gently rolls away from her fetal position that she’d been sleeping in. Lying on her back, she climbs out of the darkness of the unconscious into the warm stretch of cramped muscles. Her hand, limp just seconds ago, forms a small fist and begins to rub a half-closed eye, a pool of blue (occasionally green) to clear the night’s fog.

Wouldn’t it be nice, just once, to set your body’s programmed functions so they would coincide with whatever the current circumstances might prevail – like sleeping in past five in the morning?

For just a moment she’s forgotten what drove her back to these mountains. The solitude, the much needed quiet, safety. By now the sun has flooded the room through the single window of the tiny cabin’s loft bedroom. Illuminating the small, sagging bed and the rickety little table next to it that is strewn with empty cigarette packages and an overflowing ashtray. Remnants of another siege of insomnia last night.

Stepping over clothes strewn on the floor, she makes her way to the steep ladder gingerly lowering herself to the main floor of the cabin coffee. Oh, coffee! How wonderful it tastes and smells in the crisp morning air of the mountains. As she pours water from the well bucket into the old blue coffee pot the sound reminds her she’d better hurry and get out to the outhouse in back before long or there’d be a lot more mess to clean up than the dishes standing in the sink. Chuckling as she finishes putting the coffee grounds into the pot and setting it on the stove, she quickly opens the fire door on the front and stirs the ashes to see if there are any coals left from last night. Bringing a few embers to the top, she throws some small pieces of wood in the stove to get it started. Then she moves toward the door, picks up an old wool hunting shirt hanging from the nail, slides her feet into her riding foots without socks, and slips one arm into the shirt as she opens the door with the other hand.

As she steps onto the porch, the brilliant morning sun baths her in warmth. The smells of pine and juniper tantalize her nose and a fleeting memory enters her consciousness. She’s six now, visiting Gramma and Grampa because daddy said, “Your mom will be in the hospital soon bringing you a new little brother or sister. We live too far from town to get her to the hospital when the time comes so she’s gonna stay with some friends until the time comes. In the meantime, you have to stay with yer grandparents until I can come and get you.”

“But daddy, why can’t I stay with you?” He just shook his head and muttered something about little girls, working, and no time. She didn’t argue; she knew better than that. She was still confused and anxious. What if he didn’t come back and get her? Would she have to grow up with her grandparents? How come they had to have another baby? Wasn’t she enough for them? She didn’t think she got enough attention now. What would it be like with a screaming baby in the house taking up everyone’s time? Maybe she wouldn’t even go back. Aw, but then she’d have to stay forever with her grandparents and that could be difficult. Gran’pa was a big quiet man, like big teddy bears she’d seen in the store windows at Christmas. But Gramma was mean, well, maybe not outright mean, but so stern and unmoving it was hard to love her. Every time she got into trouble, Gramma would drag out the rosary and the catechism prayer book, make her get on her knees and say the Our Father and several Hail Mary’s as penance for whatever sin she had committed.

She pulled the leather string on the outhouse door and let herself inside. It was dark, except for shards of sunlight shining through the cracks between the boards. She was just slightly chilled and hurried to get her seat and finish this chore. As she sat on the worn hole in the boards that served as a stool, she thought to herself, “Hmmm, a one-holer! Rich people have two holes.” Then laughing out loud she realized the absurdity of the cliché she’d heard so many times growing up. Did that mean that rich people could go to the bathroom in groups of two then, instead of single file? If that was a benefit of being rich they could have it as far as she was concerned. Finished, she quickly organized her clothes and slipped out the creaky door, being careful to make sure the latch hooked securely so the wind wouldn’t take the door off if it came up suddenly.