The cracked rearview mirror split the landscape Greta passed into three pieces. It made sense. The world she was leaving behind was just as shattered. The number of fragments, though, was far greater. Her swollen eyelids blinked rapidly at times to keep the tears at bay. Her hands, yellowing bruises still decorating her wrists, ached from gripping the wheel too hard.
You're not going anywhere.
Her husband's voice echoed in her mind with such clarity that she imagined him sitting in the passenger seat. It was enough to make her lose control and veer off the road, coming to a stop in a clearing by the roadside. When the car finally stopped, she slammed the steering wheel twice, hard enough to make her whole body hurt.
"Shit!" she screamed. The fury quickly dissolved into tears. She rested her head against the wheel and cried.
Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she wondered who she was crying for. All this sadness wasn't for herself. It was for the tragic end of a union. It hurt like grief, and it was grief in so many ways. The person she'd married, the future she'd imagined, the life she'd built... everything was dead now.
Dead and about to receive a proper funeral. All you had to do was connect the dots to figure out that the photo among the flowers surrounding the casket was hers. She was the one who was dead. Completely dead. And yet, the world kept on existing.
With a tired sigh, she lifted her head from the wheel and assessed her surroundings. She was in the middle of scrubland under the faded navy blue of a night desperate to be born. She was lucky she hadn't hit a tree.
"Lucky..." she said aloud. A weak, humorless smile crossed her face.
She found it funny when someone said something like "I was lucky: I got hit by a car and only broke an arm." Real luck would be not getting hit in the first place. And she would have been truly lucky if she'd never married that man.
It was dark and she was in the middle of a quiet road on a weekday. She might be unlucky, but she didn't need to invite more trouble.
Two hours. She'd been driving for two hours straight, after a sleepless night. And every mile traveled seemed to increase the weight of what she carried in her purse. The purse she wouldn't let go of for anything, always kept within arm's reach as if her freedom depended on it.
Because maybe it did.
The sound of breaking glass echoed through the corridors of her memory. A door slammed hard, the sound of a key locking the bedroom. Screaming. Her own screaming. She never knew she could scream like that. Maybe no one knows the sound of their own desperation until they reach the darkest point of the path. The hand covering her mouth when…
No. She couldn't think about that now. She couldn't think about anything that would keep her from moving forward.
She started the car, the wheels spinning without getting anywhere. She opened the door and got out, fearing the damage might be too severe to fix. Fortunately, it wasn't.
Today really is your lucky day. The thought left a bitter taste in her mouth. There were some light scratches on the lower part of the body. The problem to solve was external: one of the front tires had no traction. It had stopped over a hole, and the tire was spinning without finding anything to grip.
"Alright, let's fix this."
She got into the car through the passenger side and grabbed her phone from the faux leather purse. Shaking the device to turn on the flashlight, she went around collecting branches and stones from the roadside.
In another situation, she might have found the scenery beautiful. Not far away, tall trees dotted the edge of a dense forest. The green of the vegetation stretched to touch the blue of the night. The result was a watercolor in dark tones, accompanied by the song of the last birds saying goodbye to another day.
Greta kept placing the debris under the tire, pressing down on the pile now and then to test its stability. The satisfaction of finding a larger rock quickly turned into a startled scream when the insects hidden underneath began a frantic dance. She forced herself to overlook the sight of the bugs, shaking off the rock and carrying her prize to the hole.
She was only satisfied after many trips back and forth. Hands on her hips, she shook her head to move the strand of hair that insisted on falling over her forehead and blocking her view.
She returned to the driver's seat and started the car. She closed her eyes and brought her hand to her chest in silent prayer. She didn't know if anyone was listening in the universe. She'd never been sure. But if there was, this was a great opportunity for the entity to impress her with its magic. At first, nothing happened.
"Come on. Move!"
Greta pressed the key hard, stomping on the accelerator without realizing it. The wheel spun and spun, determined to ignore the support of the debris.
Then someone up there heard the prayer: the plan worked. Turning off the car, the driver grabbed the last bottle of water and poured its contents over her hands, shaking her arms quickly to dry them. Wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, the woman carefully guided the vehicle to the most sloped part of the terrain. That stretch offered safe access back to the road.
Not for the first time that day, she thought about her own loneliness. She had nowhere to go and no one she felt comfortable calling.
Marriage was a double-edged sword. If it worked, the union pulled a family out of a hat like a magic trick. Otherwise, an infallible trap was triggered. A trap that isolated you from the world and slowly erected the high walls of your prison. And the construction was completed much faster for introverted people like Greta.
She shook her head to push the thought away. Among the many things she'd procrastinated over the years was meditation practice. Her mind was like traffic on big-city avenues: it might get quieter now and then, but it never stopped.
To distract herself, she turned on the radio. Tony Scalzo's voice filled the air.
They made up their minds
And they started packing
They left before the sun came up that day
An exit to eternal summer slacking
But where were they going without ever knowing the way?
The Way was just starting, as if it had been waiting for Greta. The idea was disturbing. The song's lyrics were inspired by a true story. It was about an elderly couple who set off on a trip to a new destination, got lost on the road, and were found dead. Terrible soundtrack to listen to on the highway.
On the next station, the announcer reported that a man's body had been found in a town about sixty miles from where she was. Greta took a deep breath and turned off the radio. She had dark enough thoughts already. She didn't need more.
The fuel gauge had passed halfway a long time ago. She'd never driven such a long distance alone. She'd also never left the state on her own. Her husband always preferred to be in command of the wheel, and everything else too. The woman had changed that, claiming her right to steer her own life.
The GPS showed more than a hundred and twenty miles to her destination: a small isolated cabin, rented under a distant relative's name. The property would be her hideout for an indefinite period and, with luck, her salvation.
That's when the lights appeared on the night horizon. Faint at first, forming yellowish halos against the deep blue, until they revealed themselves as a poorly lit, deserted gas station. The illuminated sign flickered irregularly, burned-out letters transforming "24-HOUR AUTO STATION" into "24-HO R AUTO ST TION." The canopy cast a weak greenish light over the empty asphalt. The message was clear. Making a good impression wasn't anyone's priority at this company.
Greta drove past, instinct advising her to avoid any kind of human contact. However, a glance at the fuel gauge on the dashboard made her change her mind. It was impossible to know when she'd find another open station. Getting stranded in the middle of the road again wasn't an acceptable risk. Besides, a strong coffee could do wonders for her spirits. Her hands gripped the wheel as she made a U-turn, the tires singing on the dark asphalt.