The Endless Highway, Chapter 1
Chapter One
It was a perfectly sunny day, not a cloud in the vibrantly blue sky as Willow and her mother headed up to Canada to see her grandmother. Willow was extremely excited to get there, as she hadn't seen her grandmother for six whole years! Every week day she worked at the local nursing home in her town, The Gorham House, to help take care of the older people living there. It reminded her strongly of her own elderly grandmother, whom she had only seen in person twice, yet they had a very strong relationship through phone calls and letters. Her grandmother loved making cookies, knitting, cats, and of course, her family. Willow looked up to Grandma Juliet, because she was a very wise elderly woman. She had lived 64 years and was in excellent health. She knew a lot about the outside world, and had helped Willow through a lot of problems in her life.
In fact, that was part of the reason Willow was so excited to see Grandma Juliet. Lately, her mother had been noticeably struggling with finances, and Willow was looking for ways to help around the house, but her mother didn’t want her to have to worry about money and that sort of thing. She insisted that it was her job to keep the family that they still had stable, and that was that.
Ever since her father’s disappearance in their life, taxes had been climbing up and her mother’s income had been steadily decreasing.
Willow wished she could help more, but she knew she couldn’t. She was only 15, just shy of being able to be hired for an actual well-paying job. Not like The Gorham House didn’t pay well, it was just that other jobs would pay a lot more for the work she was doing.
Willow reached up front to the passenger seat to stroke her golden labrador, Ruby, who was wagging her tail violently side to side and kept constantly licking her already wet nose.
“Hey, baby girl…” Willow smiled as her dog whipped her head around to lick excitedly at her face.
“Willow, remember you have to sit back, honey,” her mother reminded her, and Willow rolled her eyes as she sank back to lean against the leathery car seat.
“Yeah, yeah.” Willow sighed and situated herself again as her mother turned the radio on softly. It wasn’t like they were going to get in a crash. Sure, it happened to tons of people everyday, but to her? No way. It was one of those things that you hear happening to everybody else, but never even imagine being able to happen to you. Especially when her mother was such a careful driver. Every traffic regulation was followed to the slightest degree. Her mother refused to go 46 if the speed limit was 45, came to a complete stop at yellow lights, and always stopped to let other cars out instead of passing by herself.
Willow sighed and leaned back against the seat a bit more comfortably, and pushed her orange-red hair out of her hazel eyes to peer at the clock up front. Still a long way to go; might as well take a nap, she thought to herself, and closed her eyes to the sound of the road bumping underneath her and pop music playing softly in the background.
***
“Are we almost there?” Brett asked again excitedly, leaning up to look at his parents in the front seats. He and his family were going to the Sea Dogs game in Portland. They had gone many other times, but this time was special, because Brett’s father had finally managed to get tickets to the best seats in the house: right behind home base.
“Almost,” His father chuckled, sharing a glance with his wife. Sometimes, their son was as bad as a seven year old, instead of seventeen.
“I can’t wait to get there! Good job getting the tickets, Dad. They must have cost a fortune!”
“They did cost quite a bit, but it wasn’t bad. Don’t worry about it, son. Your thanks are enough.”
“Are you sure? Like, I’ll do a bunch of chores to make up for it!” Brett assured his father. He understood how not everyone got tickets to these kind of things, and was extremely thankful to his parents for spending their hard-earned money on something as special to him as baseball tickets.
“I wouldn’t turn that one down, Jason,” his mother smiled at her son, “but your father’s right. Don’t worry about it. We’re happy to do things for you.”
Brett grinned back. “Thanks again.”
His father nodded and motioned towards the radio. “Grace, mind turning the radio on for me?”
“Yeah! I want to listen to 104.7.” Brett chimed in.
“Alright.” As his mother twisted the dial to find the right station, Brett turned his head slightly to stare out the window. It was sunny outside, the perfect weather for a baseball game. He honestly could not wait to get there! He loved watching the players find the perfect stance, loved watching as they hit the ball dead on, and maybe even more than the rest, loved catching the balls that went wonky and into the audience. He was sure they did some of those on purpose; people as good at baseball as they were probably wouldn’t be hitting balls that crazily.
At least, he didn’t think so.
“There we go!” His mother found the station and turned the volume up so it pumped throughout the car.
“Dance party!” His father hollered, and Brett’s mom started moving her body to the beat of the music.
Brett laughed as his father copied his mother, still keeping his eyes carefully on the road, but dancing all the while.
Throwing his hands in the air, he swayed from side to side along with his crazy family.
Sometimes, crazy families were the best ones.
