Tough one today, hope not too late.A Ride in the Spring.
April 1974
Ennis was out driving. He often did it these days. Just get in the old rust covered truck and drive and drive on all the back roads. The last time he did it was last Sunday.
“Where you’ve been all day?” Alma asked.
Ennis didn’t answer her.
“Would be nice if ya came to church just once and a while.”
Ennis didn’t answer her. He just went to the bedroom and took out the postcard from the pile of postcards that he kept all the way in the back of the drawer under the thick brown corduroy shirt.
He sat there and looked at it and looked at it, just two more weeks, he thought that day, till he got to see Jack again.
Today after Alma and the girls left for church, Ennis just got in his truck and drove and drove and drove.
He stopped at the fork in the road. He usually went left, but in no hurry to go home, not to Alma and the accusing stares, he went to the right. The road narrowed and narrowed, soon it was not more then a bumpy worn path. 'A corduroy road' he had heard someone say one day. Couldn’t remember where or when he heard it
He past by an old burned out shack. He past by an old car. The remains all rust covered and black. He past by another old shack, the weeds and vines almost covering all.
He kept driving and driving, his insides shaking and rattling. He kept going, although he knew that the day was moving on.
Finally he stopped the truck, he got out, he realized he had come halfway up the mountain. He heard the birds calling far off in the distance, but now the sky suddenly was beginning to change, from bright and sunny to cold and dark.
He felt the drops of rain. But what he saw as he looked down the hill, what he saw just took his breath away. One more week till Jack, he thought, and stood there in the rain, looking at what took his breath away.
