Walking Backward Read Free

Dad came out of the basement once in a while and took us out to eat. We may be grieving, but we still have basic needs. Dr. Tierney says Dad will snap out of his daze eventually. I don’t think it helps to let him hide in the basement with delusions of time travel. But I haven’t gone to medical school to learn how to tell people it’s okay to neglect their children, so what do I know?
    I can’t wait until I’m old enough to drive myself around. I love cars as much as Sammy hates them. I try not to think of the accident, of course. When I see a car like Mom’s—one of those Subaru Outbacks that old people drive—I get a chill like it might be her, only shorter with white hair and glasses. But I understand that it wasn’t the car that killed her. It was her crazy fear of snakes.
    That sounds strange. How could a snake cause a car accident? You’d think maybe she swerved into a tree trying to avoid a snake or something. But no. The snake was actually inside the car, and she freaked out when she saw it. Mom had a snake phobia.
    A couple of years ago, when we visited Toronto, there was a picture of a snake on the subway. Mom saw it and ran to another car. She opened the doors while the train was moving and took off, screaming, while Dad sat there, embarrassed, trying to keep me and Sammy in our seats. Mom waved at us from the next car. She calmed down once she got away from the picture.
    Phobias are serious things. I’m glad I don’t have any. Snakes creep me out, but I wouldn’t run off a moving subway train to get away from one. And I wouldn’t drive off a highway into a tree if there was one in my car. I’d just pull over and get out.
    We don’t know how the snake got inside Mom’s car. The trunk was open for a while, but we live in the suburbs, not the jungle, and garter snakes don’t climb trees and dangle down through sunroofs. So it’s a mystery where it came from.
    A garden spider once came in through the sunroof. It was the size of my fist, with thick legs and a big abdomen marked like a face. I didn’t notice it at first because it blended so well into the upholstery. Mom was buckling Sammy into his booster chair beside me when Sam said, “Hey look! It’s a spider.” I thought he might have seen a daddy longlegs or something normal-sized. But no. There was a spider on steroids stretched on the back of the driver’s seat, dead center, six inches from Sammy’s knee.
    Mom nearly had a heart attack. At first she was like, “Oh yeah? Where’s the spider, honey?” I could tell she was expecting the kind of little spider you see every day. She looked where Sam pointed, and she nearly jumped a foot. She was all, “Okay. Oh my god. Look at the size of it. Okay.” She went to get something to catch it in, because she never killed spiders or any kind of bug. She asked if Sammy wanted to stay in his seat—because he was already buckled in and everything—and he said, “Sure!” like it was the greatest thing to be strapped down next to a giant spider. This is the kid terrified of Chihuahuas and Batman. I was out of the car by then. There’s no way I would stay in a car with a spider that size.
    Mom came back with a jar. As soon as she held it up, the spider jumped to the bottom of the glass. It must have been a very cool and frightening sight from Sammy’s point of view. He would have seen the spider make a leap straight for him, then stop in midair when it hit the glass. Mom slid a piece of cardboard over the jar, and the spider started scrambling around looking for a way out. She called me over and said, “Listen.” I could hear the spider’s legs on the glass as it moved. Really fast clicks, tchicka-tchicka-tchick , like a horror movie.
    Mom kept the sunroof closed after that, so that’s not how the snake got in the car. The day she died, she had just driven home with groceries before she went out again, so she might have left the trunk open while she carried in the bags. But I don’t think