Turn-About

Adeline Cross was in a spot but her mind didn’t seem to have realized yet; in the course of an evening she’d abandoned Stephen, her husband, over some disagreement about politics, packed up a motley assortment of twenty-three books (crammed by order of preference into whatever space the nearest grocery bag her hand landed on, in the corner of the kitchen by the bookshelf, availed; its previous occupant had been carried home some three hours previously, a fillet of salmon destined for Stephen’s dinner), and promptly run out of gas at the point of no return, twenty miles from home. She steered the shabby green Volvo into the nearest gas station on the power of inertia and managed to maneuver it, sweat beading the back of her neck, close enough to the pump; she prayed that arbitrarily the car had been positioned on the right side, because she had certainly had no power over the thing; more certainly, she was sure she’d never be able to reposition it if it turned out to be out of reach.

Outside, under the fluorescent noon, she prepared herself to think about the conflict. Strangely enough, though, her mind could not settle on that particular subject but floated away perversely to the most random things; it caught upon the bureau that stood in the front room of her parents’ house.

It was never “her mother’s house”, and propriety prevented it being Adeline’s father’s house, but the truth was that the latter had inhabited it so solidly, whereas his wife was prone to miss meals if not prompted—head in the clouds, space traveler.

The bureau, though, was old and scarred—the sort of thing you’d never think of. Over the years it had shifted into the house until it became as much a feature as the shingles, and although Adeline supposed they must have acquired it somewhere—it was never in the earliest pictures of the house, for instance—she couldn’t for the life of her remember where. It had done years of faithful service, though, the wood blunting at the edges so as to almost be closer to sphere-hood than rectangularity, and innumerable, unnamable scratches had sunk into its surface as completely as the layers of varnish that once had coated it; it was the color of melted chocolate, although as Adeline remembered it the wood itself was rarely seen, being hidden, for the most part, under a plethora of old tests, homework and report cards, as well as the fruit bowl.

It bothered her, the unknown origins of this bureau, as though it were an unnamed, un-thanked member of the family, a cousin maybe, who stood, socially awkward, by the side of the room. Adeline had, as of yet, no destination, and she thought of returning to her parents’ house—though it was two states away, the drive of many hours; a ludicrous proposition for a respectable woman who had taken only the most rudimentary preparations for a journey of any sort; she squinted furtively through the windows of her own car at the solitary bag of books. If she had any reason in her she’d turn back now, turn back and reconcile with Stephen; she’d be home by ten, barely a disturbance in the pond of local life—barely a fish surfacing to glance at a bounding shore.

The gasoline glugged steadily, with an unrushed sense of urgency, into the tank of the car. Adeline looked at the surrounding parking lot, rough cement stained by years of clear flammables in looks and smell. There was only one other car parked in the pool of superficial light the station cast, a car similar in looks to hers, battered, cast-aside. A young woman leaned against the open drivers’ window talking to another young woman inside, possibly a sister; reveling, it seemed, in the summer night air, through their wanton style of shorts and t-shirts. They had a sense of discovery about them; she almost envied the ties that bound them so closely to their parents, their justification for turning tail after facing the world, as they surely were, now, for the first time. Adeline had no such luxury after three years of marriage; Adeline gazed at them, probably for too long, because after a moment the standing one straightened to return her look. Adeline looked away, ashamed to be caught spying so obviously.

The pump stopped abruptly, jerking in her hand, a final gulp. She turned to the screen and paid for the gas. Then she pulled out of the gas station and turned home to Stephen.