On The Highway by Keith Pearson

She checks her face in the visor mirror. Red lines mark the white of her eyes. Red lines on the road map. She flips up the visor to hide the mirror. To hide her face. She slumps in the seat, braces her knees on the curve of the dashboard. Marks in the dust on the dash where her knees were yesterday. The day before. She can smell her socks. Her feet. Boots still wet from walking in the snow last night. Early this morning. Her boots on the floor in the back. If they stop she’ll have to put on her wet boots. Can’t go out in this in stocking feet. So gray it could still be first thing in the morning, another stormy day. Slush against the windshield, against the glass beside her head. Her hair against the cold glass. The steady slap of the wipers across the windshield moving the slush. The purr of the heater. The smell of her feet in the heat coming from the floor of the small car. She doesn’t care. Doesn’t care if he can smell it or not. His fault her boots are so wet. Next time she lets him run out. Maybe gets hit by a car. Drowns in a pond. Wouldn’t know it was ice until he was in the cold black water and sinking. Too drunk to swim.

         I woke up thinking I could smell blueberry muffins, she says. Somebody making blueberry muffins right down the hall.

         Didn’t smell any muffins, he says. Both hands on the steering wheel. She wonders if the highway is slippery. Or is he just fighting the morning after. His hair a mess. Eyes worse than hers. Hunched up over the steering wheel with both hands on it, knuckles all white.

         When we get there can we stop? Can we stop someplace tonight where I can get some of that continental breakfast that comes with the room? What is the name of this place? she asks.

         New something, he says. I’ll know it when we get there. New something, its on the map.

         Her head hurts. I don’t know where the map is, she says.

         Well its here somewhere, he says. We’ll stop when we get there.

         The slush is thick on the window beside her head. Thick pitches of it come up from the wheels of other cars and splash against the windshield. He is driving fast but not as fast as others. All the cars coming at them have their lights on though it is the middle of the day. She can barely see them as they pass in the dim gray light. When we stop can I get a muffin? Maybe a hot chocolate too?

         You can get a muffin when we get there, he says. He leans further up and over the steering wheel. He turns his head from side to side as though to loosen the tight muscles in his neck. Never takes his eyes from the road. She watches the white skin of his knuckles. Its not going anywhere and I’ll know it when I see it, he says. When we get there.

keith pearson was born and raised in new hampshire and works at a local high school in the math department.