Kathy jerked awake as the alarm clock started beeping. She reached over, smacking it clumsily until she managed to make it stop. She grumbled as she pulled the blanket up to her chin and started to roll back over, unsure why she’d set the damn thing so early. She was almost asleep again when she remembered: California! We’re supposed to be at the airport by 5:00 AM!
Jumping out of bed, she stubbed her toe on her dresser. Cursing and hopping, she headed to the bathroom. She took a quick shower, brushed her teeth, and then rushed back into her room to dress as quickly as she could. As excited as the girls were for this trip, she knew her children well enough to know they weren’t going to wake up very happy. *If only I could just carry them out to the car asleep*, she thought to herself as she headed into the kitchen to start breakfast.
As luck would have it, they were only slightly difficult to wake up instead of them being really difficult to wake up as she was expecting them to be.
Lily rushed into the kitchen yelling, “Pancakes!” as she climbed up into her chair.
“Sorry, sweetheart, no time. It’s cereal this morning.”
“No! Me no want cerroll!” Melanie cried as she scrambled into her own seat.
“You mean, ‘I don’t want cereal,’” Kathy corrected her youngest while pouring the milk into their bowls.
“That’s what she said, Momma.”
Kathy looked away to hide her grin. “Almost, but she still needs a little help with her grammar and pronunciation.” She set the cereal bowls down in front of each girl. “We have to hurry if we’re going to make it to the airport on time. Eat.” Mentioning the airport was all it took to get them to do as she asked. She even had to tell them to slow down so they wouldn’t choke.
They were in the car and on their way to the airport in Columbus in no time. They arrived at the airport on time, and Kathy was startled to see how busy it was. Having never flown before, she just assumed that it would be slow this early in the morning. She realized that she’d probably need to get back to the airport in California much earlier when the vacation was over. She got slightly lost trying to find the correct terminal but a nice gentleman was able to point her in the proper direction.
Their flight went off without a hitch—no delays and little turbulence. It was great as far as first-time flights could go, which was great because Kathy was also afraid of flying. Yes, she knew she had a lot of fears. She was working to overcome them, one by one.
The girls were a bit fussy when they first got on the plane. They’d slept a bit in the car, but they were tired and cranky—understandably so—regardless of how excited they were. Once they were in the air, she was able to distract them by getting them to look out the window. It was a great distraction for them but terrifying for her. Can we also add a fear of heights to her ever-growing list of fears? No? Well, too bad, because she did … it was definitely a fear now!
She tried to hide the fear that threatened to overwhelm her by forcing herself to relax the white-knuckled grip she had on the armrests and taking a calming breath. It took a minute of the girls chatting excitedly as they watched their ascent into the clouds through the window and the flight leveling out, but Kathy's breathing finally evened out and she was able to lean back and watch her girls in relative peace.
The girls fell asleep about 30 minutes into their flight, and Kathy was left with nothing but her thoughts to distract her. Memories of why she decided to take this vacation followed her into sleep.
“You fucking bitch! Don’t walk away from me!”
“I’m not having this conversation with you screaming at me.”
“I’m not fucking finished!”
He grabbed her arm so violently she was sure she would have bruises and yanked her around to face him. The smell of alcohol on his breath told her he’d been drinking again.
“Well, I am!” she responded as she tried jerking her arm free. “Let go of me.” She tried to keep her voice calm. The girls were awake and could hear them.
He let go, but got in her face, and she could tell by his bloodshot eyes that he was also high again.
“I’m so fucking tired of you always thinking you’re smarter than me!”
“I don’t think tha—”
“One of these days I’m gonna punch you in your stupid fucking face!” She averted her eyes when he said that, and felt her heart shatter to see Lily standing in the archway, fear in her eyes as she looked from her father to Kathy.
She jerked awake as the captain announced they were landing, and she tried to shake the lingering remnants of the past that her dreams always brought. It was her first time in California, and she wanted to focus on that. So, she gently woke the girls up and prepared them for landing. They loved watching the ground getting closer as the plane lowered. Kathy loved that you could see the ocean! All that water was beautiful! She was so focused on the water beneath her that her fear of heights wasn’t even an afterthought.
It didn’t take her long to realize she should have gone with a different rental company. The woman behind the counter was rude and unhelpful. The car’s navigation system was broken but the woman claimed it was the only one available in Kathy’s price range. To make matters worse, she wasn’t able to connect her phone to the car. It would only connect to Apple phones and she had an Android! She had to go back inside to purchase a paper map, and then she had to take several minutes to study it and try to memorize it before beginning her drive to the motel.
As she drove, the rain began to fall and she turned on the windshield wipers of the rental car. Kathy did her best to remember the route on the map, but had to stop several times to look it over before trying to continue on her way. It didn’t seem to help because looking around, she knew that she wasn’t going to find the motel anywhere near where she was.
They ended up on a side street somewhere. The houses here all looked the same: new, white, with white trim, and each with a garage and an immaculate lawn. It looked like a perfect little community, the kind you would see in a movie or on television. Kathy felt completely out of place. She may not have known where she was, but she knew the motel was nowhere near.
The rain was coming down hard by this point, and she had the wipers on the rental car at full speed when she heard the first sounds of thunder. As the thunder grew louder, Kathy could hear pieces of hail hitting the roof. At first, they didn’t sound very big, but after a few minutes they started to get larger and louder. Somewhere in the distance, the thunder rumbled again. “Crap,” she thought to herself as her hands grabbed the wheel tighter when she felt the car move sideways from the force of the wind.
The wind howled, and the thunder cracked again. Kathy contemplated knocking on someone’s door to ask for help—whether it was to ask for directions or to seek shelter from the storm, she didn’t know or even care, but she was starting to feel desperate. Storms scared the crap out of her! They always had, but the feeling in the pit of her stomach wasn’t helping matters at all.
The last time she had had a feeling like this, something horrible had happened. She prayed that nothing would happen this time, but deep down, she knew her prayers weren’t going to help. Unsure of what to do, Kathy continued driving. She told herself that the storm would pass and everything would be okay. After all, the rain seemed like it was finally starting to slow down.
In the back seat, her daughters’ constant chattering was starting to turn argumentative. Being trapped in the car after being trapped on the plane had finally caught up to them. They were definitely getting bored and restless. They needed to find that motel soon, but that meant finding a way out of the residential part of town. She opened her mouth to tell them to be patient when the oldest, Lily, screamed.
“Momma, tormado! Tormado, Momma! Look! Like on TV! Tormado!” she screeched.