won’t last very long. This is going to get a lot worse and there will be a lot more people who will need help. We just can’t…” He trailed off when his voice cracked and Mom turned her head to look at me before facing him.
“They were just babies. What if it had been Skylar and our son out there? What if they were the ones all alone and hurt and people just drove past them? What if it had been our babies?”
Sitting behind my Mom I could now see Dad’s face in profile. I saw his mouth tremble before firming into a hard line and his tone was just as hard.
“Every meal we feed to someone else is a meal our kids won’t have in the future. I’m doing this for our babies. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you all safe. I’m sorry Van, that’s just the way it’s got to be now.”
I slid back over the seat behind him and buckled back up. I didn’t want to look at his face. I closed my eyes again and thought about how grateful I was to have a dad that would do anything to protect me and then I thought about those two boys who might die because I had a dad who would do anything to protect me. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. I was so scared and confused that I didn’t know how to feel anymore so I didn’t. I just let it all go and slipped into a nightmare sleep.
The harsh smell of smoke woke me and I rasped out a cough to clear my throat. When the truck cleared the smoke, I saw that we were driving through the town of Canmore. We had spent a few weekends in the pretty little town that boasted it was the gateway to the Rockies. My family would stay at one of the many chalet style hotels and visit the tourist sites nearby and drive the short distance to Banff for ice cream and museums. There was a huge artist’s community that my mother loved and we would always have to tear her away from the galleries in the small mountain resort town.
The highway ran through the town but each side was lined with a fence to keep tourists from trying to cross it on foot so it was free of people. There were crashed vehicles that Dad had to navigate around, causing him to slow the truck down enough that we had plenty of time to see the state of the hotels and businesses that lined the road. Almost everything looked the same as the last time we had been here except for one huge hotel that was being consumed by flames. There were people in parking lots and walking down the service road but I didn’t see any vehicles moving at all. The sound of our truck’s motor was like a siren and almost every person in sight turned their heads in our direction. When a few men started running towards the fenced highway and waving their arms at us, I felt the truck speed up. I had to brace myself when Dad swerved around a wreck at the higher speed but in seconds we had passed through town and it dwindled in the distance behind us.
We had only driven a few miles from the town when Dad took an off ramp and exited the hi-way onto a secondary road. After that, I had no idea where we were as he changed roads again and again as we drove deeper into the mountains. Eventually the pavement ended and the sound of gravel under the tires started to lull me back to a light doze. When the gravel ended the bumpiness of multiple ruts in a dirt track started to bounce me around the back of the cab. My bladder gave a painful twinge at the bouncing and it made me think of Mom. For the last few months of her pregnancy she seemed to have to pee every ten minutes and I wondered how she was holding it on such a rough road.
I leaned forward between the seats to try and see her face but she had angled her body away from my Dad towards her window. When I put my hand on her arm to get her attention, I felt a flinch course through it.
“Mom, are you ok?”
I snuck a look at Dad when she didn’t answer me but his face was unreadable.
“Dad, I have to pee and I’m sure Mom’s got to go too. Can we stop somewhere?”
He didn’t answer for a few seconds and I
“They were just babies. What if it had been Skylar and our son out there? What if they were the ones all alone and hurt and people just drove past them? What if it had been our babies?”
Sitting behind my Mom I could now see Dad’s face in profile. I saw his mouth tremble before firming into a hard line and his tone was just as hard.
“Every meal we feed to someone else is a meal our kids won’t have in the future. I’m doing this for our babies. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you all safe. I’m sorry Van, that’s just the way it’s got to be now.”
I slid back over the seat behind him and buckled back up. I didn’t want to look at his face. I closed my eyes again and thought about how grateful I was to have a dad that would do anything to protect me and then I thought about those two boys who might die because I had a dad who would do anything to protect me. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. I was so scared and confused that I didn’t know how to feel anymore so I didn’t. I just let it all go and slipped into a nightmare sleep.
The harsh smell of smoke woke me and I rasped out a cough to clear my throat. When the truck cleared the smoke, I saw that we were driving through the town of Canmore. We had spent a few weekends in the pretty little town that boasted it was the gateway to the Rockies. My family would stay at one of the many chalet style hotels and visit the tourist sites nearby and drive the short distance to Banff for ice cream and museums. There was a huge artist’s community that my mother loved and we would always have to tear her away from the galleries in the small mountain resort town.
The highway ran through the town but each side was lined with a fence to keep tourists from trying to cross it on foot so it was free of people. There were crashed vehicles that Dad had to navigate around, causing him to slow the truck down enough that we had plenty of time to see the state of the hotels and businesses that lined the road. Almost everything looked the same as the last time we had been here except for one huge hotel that was being consumed by flames. There were people in parking lots and walking down the service road but I didn’t see any vehicles moving at all. The sound of our truck’s motor was like a siren and almost every person in sight turned their heads in our direction. When a few men started running towards the fenced highway and waving their arms at us, I felt the truck speed up. I had to brace myself when Dad swerved around a wreck at the higher speed but in seconds we had passed through town and it dwindled in the distance behind us.
We had only driven a few miles from the town when Dad took an off ramp and exited the hi-way onto a secondary road. After that, I had no idea where we were as he changed roads again and again as we drove deeper into the mountains. Eventually the pavement ended and the sound of gravel under the tires started to lull me back to a light doze. When the gravel ended the bumpiness of multiple ruts in a dirt track started to bounce me around the back of the cab. My bladder gave a painful twinge at the bouncing and it made me think of Mom. For the last few months of her pregnancy she seemed to have to pee every ten minutes and I wondered how she was holding it on such a rough road.
I leaned forward between the seats to try and see her face but she had angled her body away from my Dad towards her window. When I put my hand on her arm to get her attention, I felt a flinch course through it.
“Mom, are you ok?”
I snuck a look at Dad when she didn’t answer me but his face was unreadable.
“Dad, I have to pee and I’m sure Mom’s got to go too. Can we stop somewhere?”
He didn’t answer for a few seconds and I
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