A Song for the Road

Miriam?”
“It just feels right.” Miriam sucked in a deep, fragrant lungful of air. It was a perfect morning, the sky a flawless blue, the air vibrating. Every bird and bee in the greater Atlanta area seemed frantic to make up for lost time. The sweetness of spring made poetry of every indrawn breath. This was going to work. She was going to California to lay down her guilt at the edge of the ocean.
“Miriam.” Becky pulled her around and faced her. “I need you to be honest with yourself. Look at you. You’ve packed yourself a single suitcase full of your daughter’s clothes.” She fingered Miriam’s—Talia’s—white peasant blouse.
Miriam’s shoulders tensed. She knew it looked weird, but deep down she also knew she wasn’t brave enough for this monumental an undertaking. She was hoping wearing Talia’s clothes would let her imbibe some of her daughter’s fearlessness.
Of course, it wasn’t working so far. One more gentle protest from Becky, and Miriam might just fold. But then again, she was still standing outside her own house. If she could just get on the road, momentum could carry her.
“I need this, Becky,” she said softly.
Becky’s nostrils flared; she sighed and nodded. “All right. But promise me you won’t pretend to be someone you’re not. It won’t make the pain go away.”
“I’ll be fine.” There was a nervous, flighty weightlessness to knowing she was leaving all responsibility behind for a couple of weeks, nothing ahead of her but an unknown adventure planned by the children she’d lost. Miriam swiped her phone and pulled up Talia’s app.
Welcome to your #GreatAmericanAdventure! read the home screen. Upload photo to begin.
Screw that. Miriam swiped upward and found two icons: one of the profile of George Washington; the other, an eagle.
“Well, here goes nothing,” she said. She pulled out one of the wheat pennies Blaise had collected over the years. It slid off her finger twice before she managed to flick it into the air. She didn’t catch it so much as trap it against her white blouse, chasing it downward and around her back until she managed to stop its momentum. “Shut up,” she said to Becky, who was trying not to smile, and smacked it on the back of her hand. “Heads,” she said, and tapped the icon of George Washington.
A gif of a wagging finger popped up, and the screen reset to the words Upload media.
“Seriously?” she muttered.
Becky bit back a smile. “That girl was good.”
Miriam scowled. “She knows I don’t do selfies.”
“Well, you’re doing one now.” Becky pulled the phone out of Miriam’s hand and tapped on the camera icon.
Miriam put her head down.
In the photo, of course, Becky looked genteel and refined, not a single hair out of place. Miriam, as she’d intended, showed only the crown of her head. Was that a gray hair? Gah! As if she needed more reasons to loathe selfies.
She uploaded it. Say something about this photo, the screen prompted. She sighed.
Commencing Great American Adventure. Here’s hoping my programmer knew what she was doing.
BTW I don’t do selfies. Just sayin’.
The phone played a five-second snippet of “The Best I Ever Had,” flashing Congratulations! Your post has been sent! Time to flip a coin!
Becky laughed and pulled out her own phone, her finger navigating busily. “It’s connected to your Facebook account,” she said. “And …” Another tap. “Yep, it’s cross-posting to a dedicated Facebook page.” She showed Miriam the phone, which boasted a header photo of mountains in the sunset, with the title #Gr8AmAdven below it. “I’ll forward this around to the choir, now that we know you’ll be forced to update regularly. That girl … amazing.”
Miriam was a little impressed herself.
Becky embraced her briefly. “I feel better knowing she’s going to force you to keep in touch. Explore that app so we can keep tabs on you.”
“My dream come true.” Miriam hesitated. “All right. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”
Becky exhaled, closing her eyes for a moment. Miriam was certain she felt the feather-light brush of a prayer skitter over her shoulder. “All right. You call me every day, you hear?”
“You already said that.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“I’ll be fine.” Miriam paused. “But thank you.”
Miriam got in the car. She checked the mirrors, adjusting them to just the right angle, and paused at the sliver of her own reflection—the tip-top of a pasty, heart-shaped face surrounded by dishwater-blond hair and a pair of hazel eyes that showed just a bit more fear than she wanted to admit. An uncharted road, and no control at all: the story of her life.
She flared her nose and set her teeth, then tapped George Washington. “Okay, kids,” she said. “Let’s rock and roll.”

Part 2
Green Bank, West Virginia
The regret of my life is that I have not said “I love you” often enough.
—Yoko Ono
Blaise’s video intro to the Green Bank Telescope
Hey there, Mom and Dad. This first stop was my pick, so congrats on your good taste. Or luck. Y’know. Whatever.
So, here’s what you need to know: you’re going to visit the world’s … lemme see if I’ve got this right … the world’s largest steerable radio telescope. Four hundred eighty-five feet high, in the middle of a valley in West Virginia, in a teeny little town called Green Bank. The dish is supposed to be so big it could hold two football fields, and they say it can measure the energy given off by a single snowflake hitting the ground. Cool, huh? But I gotta warn you, it’s kinda in the middle of nowhere, so I hope you packed the tent because I doubt they have a Motel 6. Sayonara. Have fun.


 5
Thursday, April 28
Rural West Virginia
SIX HOURS INTO THE Great American Adventure, Miriam had learned one thing and one thing only: she hated that damn headrest.
Up, down, lean the seat forward, lean the seat back, angle her body like the Leaning Tower of Pisa to avoid it altogether—nothing worked. It was made to coddle people with bad posture. By the time she