Cul-De-Sacs

 

We rush the Big Bad Wolf to the vet at four in the morning to find it closed.

 

"We'll go somewhere else," mom will say, while I sit in the backseat petting the only part of him that isn't cut, battered or bruised. "He'll live," she’ll keep saying, "he'll live," even though we can sense it. I’ll see the tail is still forever in my lap, the mangled tongue no need for panting anymore. Still, we’ll keep right on driving. "He'll live," she’ll say, her eyes straight ahead, dodging rear view mirrors. Watching the road, looking through it.  Past it. "He'll live…" For hours we’ll drive, in circles, through neighborhoods, through downtown, through the countryside. Through parking lots and dead ends and cul-de-sacs. "He'll live..."              

 

We’ll drive on.

 

We’ll drive until eventually we find ourselves back home, and I climb into the front and she yanks back the emergency brake. She’ll kept her seatbelt fastened, eyes ahead, always ahead, painfully fixed on the garage door. Her hands gripping the steering wheel.

 

"I miss him," I’ll say then, letting my head crash into the pillow of my mother's chest as she catches me there. I won’t notice how for the first time in months, I’m sitting in the passenger seat.    

           

"Me too," she’ll say, and then she’ll finally crack.    

  

Over the houses, the day will come along like a holy diamond on fire as the first birds of morning sing the night into passing.           

 

We’ll sit there, still.                suffering our silence              saying nothing            saying enough.