Winter Outings

“What the hell is wrong with you?  Are you out of your fucking mind?”

I’ve heard that question before.  And up until now, it had been the first and last time I’d ever heard my mother use the f word…

The snow was rushing toward the windshield in dizzying spirals; little Tabitha was sleeping, leaning against my shoulder, her little head bobbing with the motion of our swerving station-wagon as it skated over the frozen road.  My toes were numb, my fingers were numb, my nose was numb, and my parents were arguing, but I was mesmerized by the crystalline corkscrew. I just focused on the falling snow, pretended that I was gliding through space.  But then my mother screamed, and she didn’t stop screaming until the long nose of our car made hard contact with a tree.  It was very late at night; we were home bound from grandma and grandpa’s farm.  I think my mother had hit her head on the dashboard because she didn’t say anything for a long, long time.  Tabitha and I were crying, hysterical, and maybe that’s what brought her to her senses.  My father was nowhere to be found, but the driver side door was wide open.  The interior light showed us his footprints leading away from the scene.  My mother, Tabitha and I abandoned the car as well, in search for a phone.  We found a house not far off the road, and the woman who answered my mother’s pleas made us wait outside while she dialed my grandparents.  My mother pressed us against her; we were all shaking.

Grandma and Grandpa came for us in the old red pick-up, and on our way home, we passed my darling dad as he slowly walked alongside the road.  My mother didn’t seem relieved to see him, and neither did Grandpa because he didn’t pull over right away.  As my father approached us, my mother called out to him, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

My father had explained that he was only going to get help, but to this day, my mother believes that my father drove into that tree in hopes of killing her.  I have a couple of thoughts on her theory:  a) she is totally right, and b) she shouldn’t do things that make people want to crash into trees and kill her.