literature

Faultline

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Kathryn-Walt's avatar
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Literature Text

She loved me with her car, this girl who wasn't a girl, who was a mountain in the guise of a girl. Hips swinging, lips an alluring red O of laughter, she shut the door behind me and drove me across the States with those baby shoes swinging by their laces from the rear-view.

"You got a kid?" I asked, and she just cranked up the music. Cher crooned I Got You, Babe over the snowy radio.

She didn't have a kid. She'd never had a kid. She had an ex who I met at a Minnesota truck stop. "Watch out for earthquakes," warned the ex, bending her head close to mine, our hair coming together in a curtain of confidentiality. I told her that in Minnesota, I wasn't worried.

The girl had hands like foothills grounding the wayward steering wheel to the road. They never quavered—steady like she was. When we kissed, she held me up, though she was a head shorter than I.

I trembled at the knees. She trembled at the tires.

We hit a storm in the Heartlands. Wind buffeted the car and set the baby shoes dancing until she pulled off the road, parked in a soy field. We waited for it to pass. I watched the storm, and she watched those baby shoes jump. "How'd you like to go to Canada?" she asked. In all her travels, she'd never been to Canada.

We stopped at the border and spent a night in a motel so close we could see over. The cold crept under the window and lay thick as fog on the floor. Between sex and shots of whisky, she gave me her baby shoes, and we slept like crossed fingers while Canada froze over across the street.

In the morning she was gone. One of the shoes stood still on the pillow, and I imagined the other running under that mirror.
Any critique is more than welcome.

I Got You Babe, by Sonny and Cher
© 2014 - 2024 Kathryn-Walt
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DailyLitRecognition's avatar
Your wonderful literary work has been chosen to be featured by DLR (Daily Literature Recognition) and has been selected as our “Pick of the Day”. It is featured in a news article here and on our main page.

Keep writing and keep creating.