Because Of Joan

Chapter 8.

Adaline Dombrovsky,

What you see pinned on my bedroom door is the most formal form of a goodbye I can give you in such short notice. You will find, behind the closed door, that I have left my bedroom clean and organized, however, I am not in it. You should also know that I have packed all I need to remain comfortable and healthy, so you need not worry about my well-being as far as my heart-disposition goes. I will be back eventually, though I am not certain of any specific time, much to my chagrin.

                        -Harper Dombrovsky

    Fastening the note to my bedroom door is the last action I take in leaving before I exit the house and walk across the dirty, rain-dampened street to Joan's car. It's still raining slightly, and Joan has her hair fastened in a clip behind her head. She doesn't wear her glasses, as she claims they'll impede in her ability to drive. I reply by insisting upon driving. She concedes by agreeing to take turns. I immediately make up my mind to drive the full 1,067 miles (17 hours and 17 minutes) straight through, as I don't believe I can endure Joan's reckless driving on such a long trip. Without a word I place my single suitcase in her trunk and get onto the driver's side. Silently, and in the dead of night, we take off for Seattle, Washington, with Joan's hand out the window. I almost remark over the fact that she could be disrupting the aerodynamics of the drive, but I decide to allow her this mercy; what with it being her vehicle and all. Silently, I roll my eyes and focus on the road ahead of me. I haven't driven for nearly a year. Not since I was diagnosed because Adaline thought it would be too much of a strain on my heart. Despite this, I must admit, the feeling of driving again is slightly liberating from the continuous suffocation of sickness.

    Joan's scheduled "switch" ends up being sooner than I originally prepared. We stop at a gas-station in Sidney, Montana so she can relieve her relentless bladder. Worried that she'll want to take control of the wheel, I refuse to pull over. I allow her to jump out of the car as I shrug along at one-mile-an-hour, and then I simply circle the parking lot, so that I can do a quick drive-by to pick her up. I realize too late that orbiting the gas pumps makes me look absolutely absurd, and I'm not only wasting gas, but am in need of gas as well. So in the end, I need to stop anyway to gas up Joan's tank, which she must have irresponsibly neglected to fill before leaving.

    Joan finishes relieving herself, and returns with unsweetened tea and a warm pretzel wrapped in grease-stained paper. I, meanwhile, go out to pay at the pump. Luckily enough for me, I have no need to relinquish my driving position quite yet. When I peer in through the dusty glass, it becomes quickly evident by her narrowing eyes, and sleepy demeanor that she's fully satisfied with remaining a passenger.

She sleeps until Glendive, when a bump in the road jostles her awake. Her mouth, which before had lulled open, snaps shut while her hair, pressed up between her head and the seat, crackles with static electricity as her negatively-charged locks of hair grapple for the positively charged fabric. For a second, she resembles a candle, with the flickering flames of bright red and orange bending toward the seat, and then she twists her loose hair back into its clip, and adjusts her glasses on her nose, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

"Where're vwe?" she asks through a sleep-numbed mouth, stretching and letting out an obnoxiously audible yawn.

"We're on I-94," I state numbly.

"Great to know, seeing as I-94 stretches out quite a long ways," she chuckles.

"Approximately 2,953 Miles, or 4,752.392 Kilometers-," I add.

"Exactly-," Joan says, somewhat astounded at my memory. "-Two-thousand and whatever miles in which we could be anywhere," she sticks her tongue out.

"Inaccurate. You fell asleep in Sidney. Even if you didn't know which direction you were traveling, it's indicated on the clock that you were asleep about an hour. Sidney isn't even on I-94, and the closest turn onto I-94 is in Montana.Therefore you could only be in Montana, and you could narrow it down to 249 miles or 400.72 kilometers of interstate." There's an awkward lapse of silence, before Joan speaks up.

"Okay....even then. Let's say I didn't know where I was, which I hope you'll tell me, I'd still have two-hundred-forty-something miles in which I could be anywhere."

"Well there are fourteen towns that I-94 runs through, so you have a 1/14 chance of guessing it."

"Not if I hardly know the Montana towns..."

"Perhaps if you glanced at a map once in awhile..." Joan's eyes widen, and I refocus my gaze on the road.

"Are you being smart with me, Atticus Harper?"

"Perhaps a little," I reply, trying to hide the smirk creasing the left side of my mouth.

"Ugh!" Joan drums frustratedly on the dashboard and pushes her head back against the seat. "Why can't you just telllll meeeeeeee?" The car shakes as Joan jiggles her leg anxiously, and then she silences herself as I speak.

"Because then it's not any fun."

"FUN!?! Since WHEN do you care about fun? I just want to know where we are!!! "

"Well then, you better start guessing. Each guess increases the chance of you guessing the right answer the next time."

"Ugggggghhhhhh"

"That is not a word."

"Wouldn't you rather play 'I Spy'?"

"Okay. I spy with my little eye the town we just passed on I-94."

"ATTICUSSSSSS!!!"

"Joan."

"Fine. Remind me what the towns are?"

"From East to West it's Wilbaux, Glendive, Fallon, Terry, Prairie, Miles City, Forsyth, Hysham, Bighorn, Custer, Pompey Pillar, Ballantine, Huntley and Billings."

"That doesn't help at all."

"One-out-of-fourteen-chance!"

"Fine! Uuum, Wilber?"

"You mean Wilbaux?"

"Yeah."

"Incorrect."

"You're really frustrating me, Atticus Harper."

"Now it's one-out-of-thirteen-chance."

"Custard?"

"If you mean Custer, then no. Custard isn't the correct answer either."

"Just tell me, dude."

"One-out-of-twelve!"

"Poppy Pillar."

"Pompey Pillar, and no. one-out-of-eleven"

"Forsoothe."

"Forsyth. You're down to a ten-percent-chance of getting it right."

"Huntley."

"I'll give you a hint: no."

"I give up, Harper!"

"Glendive! We just passed Glendive!!!"

"And why couldn't you have just told me that in the first place?"

"Because then I wouldn't have been able to show off my appalling and staggering intellect."

"Right." For a moment the car is swallowed in silence, and then Joan speaks up.

"How did you remember all of that anyway?" she inquires with an apprehensive tone.

As we skate along the interstate, I answer Joan's question with a shrug, completely unlike my usual demeanor. But in truth, I know exactly why I retain so much information regarding I-94. It's because, when I was young and foolish, I had this road map of Montana tacked up on my wall. And sometimes, when Adaline was working the night shift, I'd stare at it, willing the spaces between Peter Fills and Whitefish, Montana to narrow. Somehow along the way I memorized nearly every dot and crevice on that map. Then I grew up and I learned that fairytales don't exist when you're left behind.