What started as temporary periods of absence-years at boarding school and college for my brother and me-became permanent. “It is what it is.”įor the past decade-plus, the four of us have been stretched across the globe like an elastic band. “Listen, there’s no point blaming anyone,” he says. He’d typed something-street instead of something-avenue-or something. From the back, I exert a despairing sigh my mum demands the navigation device with a sassy hand-flapping motion Dad rests his brow against the steering wheel with Oscar-worthy drama. And my brother, our navigator, has just realized our little blue Google Maps dot is pulsating that we’re at least an hour off-course.
SODA SHOP NEAR ME DRIVER
And Mum, the backseat driver in all of our lives, is starting every sentence with, “I’m just saying…”
My father, who has a head cold, responds to physical weakness with irritation. My brother anxiously awaits reentry to the U.S. I have recently incurred a haircut that makes my head look like a king trumpet mushroom and a spate of job application ghostings has left my self-esteem trembling like the cheap engine in our white Toyota Corolla. For me, the fifth wheel for them for society en masse. Living across the world from each other, we’ve converged in the wilderness for our annual road trip. I’m sitting in a rental car with my Australian parents and brother and his girlfriend amid a thicket of maple trees in the middle of, well, somewhere, I guess.