Chapter Four: The Trek

It was Friday morning and the screaming of my alarm suddenly woke me. We were early to rise in order to get out of the state before noon. The clock read 5:00 A.M. – an ungodly hour. I heard the running of the shower through my room’s thin walls. My mother must have gotten up earlier to shower. I wished to cleanse as well.
I slowly crept out of my bed, feeling a crick in my neck – a joyful feeling knowing that you had a days worth of driving ahead of you – yes sarcasm. Grabbing the set of clothes I laid out on my suitcase the night before, I walked into the bathroom connected to my own bedroom.
My bed, my mother’s bed, and our two clocks were the only remaining items in our house. They were to be picked up at 10:00 – a time in which I wish we were leaving. The other furnishings of our house were already on the trek to our apartment, which was rented without our knowledge, and were to arrive a day before we arrived.
The shower water felt good on my sore neck. Heck, maybe it would lose the crick all together – highly doubtable. I tended to get many aches and pains after resting, as did my mom, but normally they subsided by the early morning, as in 11:00 or so. Some aches, as today’s, lasted all day, and sometimes even carried on into the following day. I had a terrible and gut wrenching feeling that this crick would follow that trend.
There was a knock on my bathroom door, which highly startled me, for I was not used to being interrupted as I was in the bathroom.
“Wrap it up. I want to be on the road by quarter till six,” my mom said, her voice sounding muffled through the door and the water hitting the floor of the shower, which happened to be steaming up quite speedily.
“Mhm,” I managed to get out. My groggy mind only allowed a certain vocabulary to be used at this hour in the morning, and mhm seemed to fit my mind’s mood.
After rinsing the remaining conditioner out of my hair, and allowing the soap bubbles to flow down my chest and legs, I turned the faucet to the right, which caused the water to stop. I grabbed a towel hanging from above the toilet, just outside of my shower, and wrapped it around my waist, after, of course, drying the upper half of my body, which caused the crick in my neck to become even more painful.
Now fully dressed, I grabbed my toothbrush, toothpaste, towel, shampoo, conditioner, and soap, and threw them in the bathroom bag outside of the bathroom floor. Grabbing the bag, I headed out of my room, giving one last glance to my bed, which only contained one sheet, and turned to leave the house forever.
It was sad, terribly sad to walk away from this beloved house. I had grown up here, and more importantly, I was with my father here. He had never been to North Carolina, and I worried that the spirit that I swore was watching over me, would be too frightened to venture to such a new land.
There would be no big city, no noisy nights – it would be dull. No friends, no family, no nothing. My dad’s parents lived in Texas, and they had departed from LA on Wednesday. We chose not to be real chummy with them while they were here, for we felt that they needed some time to reflect. His only brother was in France at the time, and was unable to attend the funeral. His permanent home was in Toronto.
When it came to my mother’s side, well they were all over the place. Her parents lived in England. Her dad, my grandpa, was in the hospital, and hadn’t been home in a while. He was still recovering from cancer. At the age of 67, he did pretty well with the chemo treatments.
Her sister, Beverly, lived in Italy, not leaving Europe, as did her brother Jacob, who currently resided in Spain. As a young girl her family moved to Scotland, and after the kids were grown, my mom being the oldest at age 23, the family separated. My mother Lin was the only member of the family to move back to the states. She was now 39, Jacob 36, and Beverly, Bev for short, was 34. None of her siblings could attend the funeral either.
Walking out of the front door, I noticed my mother standing outside of the car, her frame dully outlined in the darkness of the morning.
“Now latch the door won’t you?” she demanded. I turned at shut the door, locked from the inside, and glanced once more at the box that contained the key for the movers.
It was a bit unreal to leave this house – as I said, I grew up here. I would never imagine the day us moving out, but then again, I never imagined my father dying at such an unfair age, in such an unfair way.
Of all people to come into my mind, it was Ms. Vauche. Why the hell would she be popping into my thoughts as I was reflecting over this wonderful, and my wonderful father? I couldn’t quite grasp that one, so I decided for once to just let it be.
“Come on now.” I turned from the door and said something I never had before, or at least not to my mother.
“Yes ma’am…” I trailed off, almost shuddering at what I had said. No, this was not a bad thing, I just had no bloody clue as to why I said it.
“Ah, are we getting formal now?” she asked, chuckling lightly, but loud enough to hear clearly in this silent hour. Obviously, the question was rhetorical, but either way I responded, regardless of how much of a moron I sounded like.
“Who said bribing never worked?” I said. Of course I was joking. I “giddy-upped” to the car - No, I didn’t leap, just sped walked. She bobbed me on the head as I walked past. “What was that for?”
“I say bribing never works you dimwit!”
“Whatever,” I said, using the best-of-my-ability British accent, trying to imitate her father. Ha, I never realized I used the word bloody so much. I guess when I was younger he said it around me, and well it stuck.
I hopped into the car, moving the I-pod I had laid there the night before into a cup holder, and prepared myself for the drive that lay ahead of me.

We stopped briefly at a McDonalds for lunch around noontime. We were in a town called Flagstaff. The restaurant was clean, and surprisingly the cashiers were pleasant to us as we ordered.
My mother and I ate in almost total silence, but it was broken by her.
“So, how’s the drive been treating you?”
“Eh, it could be better. Only the thought of having to drive another two days lets me cheer up,” I said, with a sneer, and a large sense of sarcasm.
“Watch it buddy, I don’t like it either.”
“I know, I know, what’s the crime of adding a little humor?” The actual trip was estimated 34 hours and 59 minutes on a map site we found. At 35 hours, we were planning on driving around 12 hours a day. Roughly that puts us at 3 days.
“You ready?” she asked, obviously asking if I had finished my food.
“Yeah, let me just use the facilities,” I said, trying to sound sophisticated. After driving for 6 hours, I was a bit groggy, and anything to give a laugh would make me happy.
I shuffled up to my feet, grabbing my tray and walking it over to the trash on the way to the restroom. My mom followed, but parted to the ladies room.
The restroom was cold, and playing in the background was a cheesy classical piece you would expect to hear in an elevator. After empting my system, I cleansed my hands, using warm water, which was something I typically didn’t do. I just felt like it for a change – the warm water felt great running over my hands.
I exited the facilities – yes in my head I was chuckling at my not-so-funny sarcasm – and walked to the exit of the McDonalds. I waited for a moment, glancing at the different orders that people had selected. I enjoyed doing this, for you could learn a lot about a person from what they ate.
A large man, about two tables down from me, was coughing down a double bacon cheeseburger, with a side of large fries, which at the moment he had one in his hand, dipping in them in some sort of sauce. To wash that down he had a very large cup of brown soda. I felt accomplished that I had now seen the results of this fattening food.
My mother appeared into my sight, and we walked to the car. When she switched the ignition, the car clock read 12:30.
“So when you think we’ll stop?” I asked.
“Eh, maybe around 6:00 – 6:30.”
“Okey dokey, sounds great,” I replied, sinking down into my chair, attempting to become comfortable. I leaned over and grabbed my I-pod out of the cup holder, placed the ear buds into my ears, turned on a song at random, and shut my eyes.

At six fifteen we pulled into a Super 8 motel. Across the street was a Holiday Inn, but we were watching our budget. Although we had only been on the road 10.5 hours, we got caught in traffic for 1.5. We decided stopping before our 12 hour goal was only necessary.
We got a pretty nice room considering that we had no reservations – not to sound like a snob or anything, but who would make reservations in a place like this. I had a hunch that this motel was built for people like us – groggy travelers that had been driving all day, and didn’t give a crap what their room looked like, as long as it had a bed and a shower.
Our room had one king sized bed, for my mom and I to share, a shower/bath combinations, as do most hotel rooms, and a TV which probably only had 10 channels, none of which worth watching. We were on floor two of five, so there was a possibility our upstairs neighbors would keep us up all night.
After throwing down our little luggage, which didn’t contain more than two bathroom bags, a small handbag for clothes, and a small bag for entertainment items (I-pods, books, ect.), we left the room in search of a place to eat dinner.

We continued this driving-and-stopping pattern for the next three days. Nothing eventful stuck out in particular. There was this one motel that had a very loud noise coming from it all night. We must have been directly below some “a-holes” who thought they were the only ones on the planet. I come across many of these types.
At 12-ish on the third day of our trek – Sunday – we pulled into the “lovely” state of NC. I guess you could call my judgment a little bias – all though I have had no experience.
We drove and drove, almost running out of gas. I kept having this crawling feeling that I had left something at home – yes I am referring to Los Angeles. I hate that bloody feeling, and I hate it even more when you realize that your fear has come true. I had left the birthday card that Suze had given me. God, why am I such a goof?
It had been silent for the past hour or so, and it was becoming abnormally comfortable. It was time for some noise. Only one slight problem that was becoming larger by the second – what the hell is there to talk about? Then off all people, Ms. Vauche popped into my head. I was thinking of why it was her that came to me, for I was almost certain that it was “destiny” that it was her that I had thought of.
“Hey mom?”
“Yes?” I felt like a moron. What was I to say? Then it came to me – Ms. Vauche was strangely familiar.
“Yes?” she asked again, not knowing why I had a sudden pause between words.
“Do you think Ms. Vauche is familiar?”
“Well I never really thought about it, but now that you mention it, yes, yes I do.”
“Can you think of why the heck she would be familiar?”
“No, can you?” I was about to respond with a no as well, but then something else came to me. I began to have “flash backs” of the beach seen.
We were all in the water, swimming our little hearts out, when there was a tug below the water. Then, before my eyes, my father was sucked below and was being drug out. I was shallow enough to stay above water. My mom, not a weak swimmer herself, was pulled off her feet, but she too was to shallow to be pulled out.
I remember seeing a woman, just a little deeper that my dad. I screamed to her – I screamed for her to grab my father. She could’ve done it, but she was a coward. I remember her glancing at me with some sort of sad look, and then showing it to my father. She then used her entire body strength to pull herself into shallow water.
I hated that woman, and ever since the rip tide I had wanted to find that woman. Lucky for me, I did. It made sense, that is, why she wanted us out of our house to quickly. She didn’t want us to figure it out. I hadn’t gotten a good look at her. But now, I had the victim.
“Erik honey, I asked…”
I cut her off.
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
“Ms. Vauche killed dad.”