Elizabeth Hamilton, nee Everett, was by all means a happy person.
She had all that a woman could ever hope for. A fine house with reasonable debt to pay for the next few decades, a rewarding job, a loving and faithful husband to share the bed with and two of the most lovable children a mother could ask for. She was living a dream come true in a clean and safe suburb. On their yard they had a trampoline and an expensive grill and the grass was as green as it should be. Only a dog was missing from their picture perfect life.
Oh. And her mother was in hospice care.
She knew, of course, that all life must come to an end at some point. That was what she told to her children, a t least. She had already dealt with the loss of her father all those years ago and she would get over this one as well. All she needed to do was get a grip. Her mother seemed to be taking it all so calmly and so should she.
When her father had died, it had been awful. She had been forced to take a month off of work to get a hold on her feelings. Luckily that was around the time she had met with Mike, he had offered a pleasant distraction to the sorrow. Now she would concentrate on the children. Looking after the kids would provide her with something else to think about for a change.
She would survive this. She was a happy person.
Grace, her youngest daughter, was squirming on her lap, refusing to make binding her shoelaces any easier. Mike was moving on the second floor, she could hear him talking on phone again.
It had all started years back. What had seemed like a perfectly normal headache had turned into something quite more sinister and then the doctors had dropped the news. There was nothing to be done. Her mother was dying. Sure, she had lived a long and a full life, but death was still death. And there was no escape.
"Come on, Mike. We're leaving!" Elizabeth called balancing Grace on her other hip.
"Yeah, yeah," she could hear the faint response from somewhere around the house.
"Come on!" she shouted. "You are doing this on purpose!"
A mumbled answer.
"Whatever, I'm going to the car now!"
Elizabeth Hamilton, nee Everett, was a tolerant woman. There wasn't much in life that she shunned. She believed in equality in its all forms, she had no problem with people that were different from the norm and she embraced new ideas with open arms. She was always on the side of the underdog – at least that was what she would say if someone was to ask. She was as lenient as they get.
But there was one thing she hated.
The car.
It had been in the family for as long as she could remember. And as long as she could remember, it had always looked the same. No matter how much her mother would try to paint it and make it look all nice and shiny, it always failed to look like nothing more than a rusty old pick-up.
Grace was giggling happily, waving her feet and trying to reach the faintly red truck with her chubby little hands. Elizabeth sighed tiredly, moving her child from one hip to another. If she was given a choice, she would send the damned car to the landfill, but she couldn't do it. Not as long as her mother was still alive, at least. That woman had the strangest emotional bond with the vehicle and Elizabeth just didn't have the heart to dispose of the thing. But after her mother was gone, Elizabeth would get rid of the damned thing as quickly as possible. A rusty old piece like that did not belong to a fine house such as theirs.
There were only two seats so Mike would have to hold Grace on his lap the whole way. They could have taken their family car, a spacious and secure Toyota. But no, mother wanted this car. Elizabeth sighed and set little Grace on the passenger seat and walked to the other side of the car. As she got in, she saw that her little sweetheart was sitting with the seatbelt on. Elizabeth had not put it on herself. And she was pretty sure Grace wasn't able to either.
"Gracey?" she said slowly. "Did you put the seatbelt on all by yourself? What a wise girl you are!"
"No mommy!" her little angel said with a toothy smile.
"Then how did you – "
"Darling?" Mike shouted from the house.
"Yes? What is it now?" Elizabeth asked tiredly.
"I just got a call from work. I have to go," he said, his head popping through the door.
"What? Just now? You have to go now?" she asked feeling a tad bit of anger mixing with her voice.
"I'm sorry, honey. You know I'd like to go – "
"Yeah, yeah," she snapped. "I get it. You take the other car. I'll go with Gracey."
"You sure, hon?"
"Yes," she said through her teeth. "Just go."
Mike blew a quick kiss from the other side of the garage. "Say hi to your mom for me," he said.
"Yeah," Elizabeth said turning the key to start the car. The loud cough of the engine and the thick fumes that filled their tidy garage made her cringe. "I'll do just that."
The hospice was an hour's drive away from their house, on the side of a big regional hospital. Elizabeth was seething behind the wheel. She had never liked driving her mother's car. She felt embarrassed behind the scratchy windshield and had felt like that since childhood. No matter how many times she had begged her mother to buy a new car she had always refused. So after a while Elizabeth has started attending her soccer practice with her own bicycle only to avoid the embarrassment of having to sit in the pick-up truck.
"So, what do you say, darling?" Elizabeth asked cheerily from Grace who was peeking out of the window to see the cars passing by. "Should mommy try if the radio works this time?"
"Yay! Music!" her little angel cheered.
"Let's see if mommy can get this little piece of… rust… to work," she said smiling to her little baby that was now playing with the seatbelt. "Honey, leave the belt alone. That thing is keeping you safe in case the car starts acting up."
"Des won't let us get hurt!" Grace said with an endearing smile.
Elizabeth groaned internally. When had her mother had time to tell those stories to her little girl? No amount of fairy tales would make the rusty old pile of scrap into a sentient being, not even a name.
"Be a good girl now and do what your mommy tells you to," she said tiredly.
It was a late Saturday morning and the roads were nearly empty. Elizabeth was grateful for that. For a brief moment a blue sports car drove behind them but it took another road not long after. Her knuckles were white over the steering wheel.
Her phone started buzzing in her bag. Se groaned out loud.
"Honey? Would you get that for mommy?" she asked with a voice covered with saccharine.
"Yes, mommy," Grace said pulling the phone out. "Hello? It's me! Gracey, you big silly!"
"Who is it, dearest?" Elizabeth asked.
"It's daddy! He asks where you put the tie."
"Which tie is he talking about?"
"Umm… He says the red one."
"It should be in the closet with the rest of them. Ask him if it'll take him long to get back home, will you dear?"
She hardly listened to her little angel talking with Mike on the phone. She was feeling tired. Strained. They had only driven for a quarter of an hour. They still had a long journey ahead of them. And she was doing her damn best not to burst in tears.
Elizabeth Hamilton, nee Everett, was by all means a happy person. But these times were stretching her to her limit.
The car engine sputtered under her but didn't die. She kept driving.
