Lunaris

The Road to Freedom

Hold me close and tell me how you feel,

Tell me love is real.

Words of love you whisper soft and true,

Darling I love you.

Let me hear you say the words I long to hear,

Darling when you're near.

Words of love you whisper soft and true,

Darling I love you.

The Beatles: "Words of Love"

The old radio crackled with static, as KBKL 107.9 FM's DJ switched from Elvis Costello to old-school Beatles. Mina Phillips cheerfully hummed along, familiar with the tune's simple, yet sweet lyrics, while tapping her turquoise ringed hands against the peeling and duct taped vinyl steering wheel of her rust-bucket silver Dodge pickup truck. The road stretched dark and icy before her as the evening sun began to wane, casting everything into inky shadows. Her dim headlights only illuminated the space fifteen feet ahead, forcing her to drive slowly. The small U-haul trailer she towed behind the truck bumped and rattled noisily. It made her nervous around the narrow and blind turns up the mountain road, as it was a heavy rectangular box filled to the brim with all her most precious worldly possessions. Should she lose that over the side of the steep ravines packed with fresh snow, she would find herself in a strange state with nothing left to her name but her name and sheer willpower to survive.

Snowflakes gathered and sticked to the windshield around the wipers, icing over the glass as the heat of the engine melted the flakes and the frigid air re-froze it. The farther she drove north on Highway 550 towards Ouray, Colorado, the more the temperature gauge plummeted toward freezing temperatures. For everything that went wrong with her junker truck, she was pleased that at least the heater was still working. She could feel the icy tendrils of air tickle the back of her neck from the window that didn't seal closed tightly, but the heat blowing on her hands and face helped counteract the affects.

If her AAA map was correct, she was still a good hour or two away from Ouray. Mina had only fifteen or so minutes of daylight left, and a quarter tank of gas, but the last buildings and gas station had been almost an hour's drive behind her in Silverton. The 550 was a truly scenic drive, winding through the Anvil Mountains and Hayden Mountains with tall pine trees and red-colored rocky cliffs rising up on either side of the two-lane road. After living her entire life in the northern central part of Texas, she was familiar with the tall pines, but not so much with the soaring, snow-capped peaks of these Coloradan mountains. The air was thinner up here, making her lightheaded with lungs that burned and ached for her rich Texan air. But every struggled breath was a blessing. She was free from the past, heading to a place he'd least expect a small-town country girl to go to. The farthest she had ever wandered from Fort Worth was Houston, but now she was almost a thousand miles away, and she had no intention of stopping until she reached her golden destination.

The map on her lap highlighted the roads she intended to take. Mina had been in a hurry the past week to secretly settle her accounts and close the doors to her business. She hadn't even said goodbye to her friends, or canceled the caterers, florists, and venue on the golf course for the wedding tomorrow. With her entire life savings in a small safe nestled in the back seat, she fled to the border of Texas with no other hope than to end up far, far away from that man's reach. She couldn't relax in her seat until her truck had passed through the border. She couldn't help but search her rear view mirror every five seconds, expecting his gloating face to be staring back at her, stacks of law files piled into his hands probably backing his right to philander around with her ex-best friend and bridesmaids, and keep half of the income she alone had worked so hard to save. She had been his for fourteen years, sweethearts before they were even teenagers. But after what she had witnessed days ago, he was more a stranger than ever.