Forward

Tim buckled his seat belt and honked the horn.

“Let’s go!” He would take advantage of being in the driver’s seat.

Surprise and…something…flitted across Rachels face as she trudged towards the car. So, she could be caught off guard, it was good to know.

Rachel plopped into the seat next to him as he did a final mirror check. She looked at him appraisingly as he finished, his heart racing. Tim was nervous as hell but he could handle this. He had twenty something years of driving under his belt, all of it flawless. Until last time.

He checked his rear and passenger mirrors, assessing the traffic he would have to navigate to merge back onto the highway. Into the highspeed lane. This wasn’t exactly a refresher drive here and holy shit he was doing it!

Tim pushed the gas, hesitating for a brief moment as his actions caused the car to start to roll forward. He went for it and slammed the pedal down, seeing an opening he could make. He could.

The car spit dirt and clods of grass as it sought to climb back on the road, engine smoothly running up the RPMs. Once three of his tires had hit the road he spurted forward, already over 40 miles an hour and climbing steadily.

Tim had lucked into a big gap, so he quickly switched over to the middle lane and let the car more leisurely speed up to a hair over 65. He had to repress a brief but powerful urge to smirk at Rachel. Then he realized she would certainly call him out on the fact that driving a car wasn’t exactly a braggable achievement at his age. Still, he tallied a line on the imaginary chalkboard keeping score between them. When the dust settled Rachel still had a lot more lines, but he was catching up.

The thought of catching up with Rachel led to the next natural thought path.

“And what the hell do you mean you’re leaving me?” He was still pretty pissed at being man handled then forced to drive. “You could have mentioned that sooner!”

“You may be right.” She said this thoughtfully, he was getting whiplash trying to follow her mood. “I wasn’t sure if I should tell you right away or later. I decided that now was better, give you a few days to come to grips with this and get your feet under you. Seemed like you had enough to worry about without this hanging over our heads the whole time.”

Tim grunted; he couldn’t find fault in her logic but there must have been a better way to handle this. Once he thought of it, he’d let her know.

“So, what do I have to do?” This was his immediate concern, but another worry followed right behind. “And why are we splitting?”

“There are things you…we need to do on our own.” She seemed to be tackling his second question first. “All you need to worry about is heading to Naupa Iglasia.”

Rachel frowned and buckled her seat belt, suddenly aware that the annoying dinging in the car was due to her. She shuffled around until she was sitting on her knees, feet tucked behind her, facing slightly towards him.

“In the morning cross the border and head there. Trust your instincts, they won’t be wrong. Just follow whatever route the GPS gives you. Don’t stop unless you have to…or feel you should.”

She thought for a moment, going over whatever checklist she had for transformational spiritual journeys.

“I’ll be at the trail head by dusk.” She paused. “That’s where the trail starts.”

“I know that.” He hadn’t really been sure about that, guessing from context. “What if you’re not?”

“I will be.”

Tim glanced over at her, she did not raise her voice, but it was clear that the truth of her statement was not up for debate.

“Ok. Ok.” He would much prefer she be there (did she have to be?) but he did know they were going to some stone door at the top of the path. He could do that if for some reason she didn’t show up.

Tim was still nervous about traveling alone. If anyone called him out on what he was doing he would have no idea what to say. And what if someone ran his drivers license? He was in a hospital thousands of miles away, if he even existed in this reality at all. Rachel was nothing if not confident. She could assess and take control of a situation in moments, using the force of her personality and an easy good-natured goofiness to steer events to her desired outcome. Tim had no such ability. He had filled in as an assistant t-ball coach for a single game once. The kids had eaten him alive. He couldn’t even get a handful of ten-year olds to listen to him, he didn’t feel comfortable trying to bluff his way through a guarded international border.

“Where to?” They had reached the outskirts of El Paso; exits they were passing snaked into the city and various suburbs.

He’d feel better if he had a destination. Once they stopped for the night he’d be able to try to process this and question Rachel further. For now, his body had fallen into the familiar rhythms of driving, he was having no problems. He didn’t want to push that.

“You decide. Just drive.” Certainly not comfortable at this point even toying with in dash GPS while he drove, Tim didn’t have much choice except to follow her advice.

“OK.” This journey seemed to involve an awful lot of randomness.

Tim drove into the city with the night, eyes open.