~the Backward Fall

After a few minutes, she says, "My feet are cold. Will you get me the blanket out of the closet by the door?"

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"Did you fill up the tank like I told you?" she asks. She is sixty-five. She is also forty-eight.

"Once we get on the road, I don't want to have to stop for gas." He looks at her for a moment, bobs his head, and turns back to the television.

"Aren't you going to answer me?"

"I don't even know what you're talking about, Mom."

"The tank. Did you fill up the tank?" Sighing, he mutes the program he is watching about ancient people in Peru.

He has always wanted to see the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu. Several years ago, he embraced the fact that he will never go. "Why would I fill up the car? We never go anywhere but to the grocery store once a week."

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3

She laughs and shakes her head. "You can be so dull sometimes. The Grand Canyon!"

"The Grand Canyon?"

"We're leaving tomorrow."

"Mom, we went to the Grand Canyon over fifteen years ago. Don't you remember?"

She raises a finger to correct him, pauses, looks off into nowhere with her eyes unfocused. The finger moves to her bottom lip. "But, I …"

He watches her for a time as her face voids of all emotion, all evidence of thought.

He thinks of the Grand Canyon, which they visited shortly after he retired from the factory on disability

. On his first day without a job, he cashed in almost all their chips and bought a motor home. They drove it all over the country – but first, to the Grand Canyon. They called it The Big Adventure, their three year jaunt from one ocean to the other and back again. They felt so young during that time.

He un-mutes his program and, like he does every minute of every day, tries to breathe through the pounding of his heart.

"I heard they have mules you can ride down into the canyon," she says. "You think that's true?" Her hand is resting on the table between them. He reaches over and grasps it. In his mind's eye he sees her body rocking forward and back as the mule traverses the rocky trail, her reddish-gray hair lit from behind by the desert sun.

"I'm sure of it," he says.

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A hand on his shoulder shakes him from sleep. He props himself up in bed and looks at the clock. Nearly four in the morning.

"What is it, Mom? What's wrong?"

"I need to tell you something." She is sixty-seven. She is thirty-one. He sits up and turns on the lamp.

"Wendell Thurber kissed me on the mouth today," she says.

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4

"Wendell Thurber?"

"We've been taking lunch together quite a bit lately and today he kissed me."