As soon as she called to tell me that her mother was in the hospital, I was grabbing my keys and heading out the door, with the phone still squeezed between my right ear and right shoulder, and the hands closing the house door and then turning on the ignition of the car.
She will need support. She will need someone to cry on. It's not mortally serious. Her mother is strong and will definitely make it. But it's scary, nonetheless. And at some moment, the phone was no longer an attachment to my head, or a glue between my head and my right shoulder. And with both hands on the wheel, I was navigating through the downtown traffic as my machine and I zoomed towards the Veteran's Hospital.
A respite. A small respite. Stuck in a sea of cars. I should have taken the other route, but I hesitated at my last chance to get on that other highway. I wasn't sure what the traffic was like. I should have checked the traffic conditions before I left. But I was in a hurry, understandably. So now I am stuck. I want to smack the steering wheel, just to let out some steam. But I suddenly feel some tranquility. Where did it come from?
Strange.
Here I am inching towards the exit for the parkway that goes in front of the hospital. If there were no traffic, I would get there in ten minutes. Now it will probably be another thirty minutes, if I am lucky. But it stopped mattering. Suddenly I wondered. Why am I in a hurry? Why am I even in the car? To get to the hospital so someone can cry on my shoulders. My body seems to react automatically for this sort of images, the image of her crying on my shoulder, the image of her needing me, the image of me gaining a place of attention, getting and giving. And to what avail? It's such a temporary event, a temporary feeling, and a ridiculous hope that such event would bring us closer.
It started to run at some point. I hadn't noticed until now. The droplets, changing the landscape around me as viewed behind these windshields. And this tranquility lingers, and questions mushroom all around me, as if I were a rotting log in the early autumn when everything was preparing for a long hibernation. The rotting log is spewing out a lot of old memories. And so I am sitting here, inching towards the exit whose sign I can see, 1/2 a mile more. And in about thirty minutes, if I am lucky, or not, I will be parking, and after that, running to the emergency room. Really? Running? Should I be running? I am always so available. I am the first person she calls for help but never the first person to think about when she wants someone in her life.
Someone just cut in front of me, thinking about by cutting in front of people they would get out of this jam sooner. My peace was temporarily shattered by the anger of being cut off. But I let it pass. I am still thinking. Wondering. I look to my left and see the cars on the opposite traffic are zipping by, quickly. They have no problems. They are going back to where I came from. And the thought occurred to me that I could just as easily, after reaching the exit, get on the other side of the highway.
No, I already promised. But perhaps this time I can make it the last time. For no other reason to fulfill a promise. And after this one, I would stop running like a mad driver to a destination that would never hold the deep happiness I hope for.
