They expect me to say something about Alzheimer’s. About memory. About how fragile the mind is.
And I do think about that. Every time Mark comes home from St. Louis and tells me what his mother called him that week.
But mostly, I tell them about stopping.
My husband drove eleven hours that day because he couldn’t stand to arrive. Because as long as he kept moving, he didn’t have to face what was waiting for him at the end of the road.
A lot of us do that. We keep driving. Past the exits. Past the motels. Past the people asking us to stop. Because stopping means feeling the thing we’re running from.
But sometimes, if you finally stop, if you pull off at some faded blue sign in the middle of nowhere at ten-thirty at night, you find exactly what you needed.
You find a room that isn’t supposed to be there.
