Guilt-Provoking

Posted on October 9, 2002 in Depression Partnership

“Are you going to tell me how to get to your Aunt Faire’s or should I use Mapquest?” Lynn asked me while I napped.

“Use Mapquest,” I grunted and pulled the blanket up over my neck.

She sailed to the office and sat down at the computer. I heard maybe one or two pecks at the keys before sleep erased the sound. A story board upon which Lynn was the main actor played out in my head as I heard her get up, go out the front door, open the garage, and leave.

The room blued as the sun set. I drove down the hill to Arby’s for dinner. After I finished my beef and cheddar combo with curley fries, I came home, couched myself in front of the computer, and glanced at Internet Explorer which she’d left running. Mapquest hovered in two windows, giving directions to two streets in Tustin that sounded like the one where my aunt lived; but they weren’t.

Wednesday, October 09, 2002 10:13:50 PM

Postscript: My mother called me about half an hour ago to tell me that Lynn had not arrived at Aunt Faire’s and that the two old women were worried. “If she gets here late,” she told me, “we’ll have her just stay the night and drive home in the morning.”

Oh Lynn, I thought. Worry convulses my mother and when she wails, my innards twist, too. I knew what was happening: Lynn was stubborn about being lost. She’d rather drive around for hours trying to find a place than call for help or just give up and come home.

Five minutes ago, the cell phone whistled the opening of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Lynn told me that she’d arrived. “I just got here and they’re making me stay the night,” she explained. So I will spend the rest of this darkness awake and alone in our bed, atoning without a God for napping when my direction was needed.