Tumbleweed
By Ani Banerjee
My daughter, Mira, and I are driving to Big Bend. The family says I need fresh air. We have crossed Marfa, and the desert has stubbles of dead cactus, like an old guy, too fragile to shave. Mira is driving. After my horrible accident, I don't drive. I killed my son in that accident, I should be put in prison for that. They said it was the other guy’s fault, he was drunk, but no one asked why I was driving at night. Sujit would have been forty now if he lived. I don't talk about it, my family wants me to move on.
Fall has not yet arrived in Texas, but it's under 100 degrees, so it is pleasant. We are listening to an audiobook of short stories. I look over to Mira, and she is wearing my hat.
“You got my hat,” I say.
“Mom, this is my hat, yours is tucked away in your suitcase. Remember?” I would have liked to stop, to rummage through my suitcase and show her she is wrong. She can borrow my things, I don’t mind that at all. But why is she lying about it? I don’t say anything.
I can’t let go. My daughter’s hat is a black Astros cap, with an orange A. Mine is just a round gray hat, no adornment.
“Weren’t you wearing a ‘Stros hat?” I ask.
“Nope,” she replies, “Mom, mom, mom, your hat is grey. Mine is blue.” Hmmm, the hat she is wearing is clearly grey. Why is she gaslighting me? She turns up the volume on Audible, a signal for me to be quiet.
The roads in this part of Texas, they just run endlessly up and down. There is no speed limit, except for the required stopping for tumbleweed or cows when they meander from the fields. The sun gleams September- yellow from a clear blue sky. I must have slept, because I was on the fox story, and this one was about Lincoln, when I suddenly felt a bump. “Oh my God,” I ask, “what is that?”
“A bump, sorry,” Mira replies.
“That is no bump. It felt like you ran over a human.” Mira shakes her head no. “Let's stop,” I say.
Mira drives on as if she did not hear me. When she slows down, I slip out of my seatbelt and open the door.
Mira screams as I tumble out. She screeches to a stop. But I am a falling pro. I’ve fallen so many times that I can be as agile as a cat. I have metal knees and I know not to fall on them, nor on my head. Instead, I put my hands out and fall on my hands. A thud disperses from my body into the desert. Mira is there beside me, cuddling me. I remember when Mira was two, she had a beloved hat in the shape of a cat, a Miao hat, and during a tantrum, she threw it out the window of my car, and then she wanted me to stop. I wanted to tell her that, but I look into her eyes and know this is not the time for small talk. And then in the distance, I saw him, a man, a man who looked like Sujit, tumbling towards us. I point. Mira says that’s a tumbleweed, but I know my son. Mira helps me to the car and washes the bruise on my hand with drinking water. She is rushing to the hospital. But I can’t leave Sujit here. I point and cry and want Mira to wait until Sujit tumbles towards us, but Mira coos to me as if I am a baby and drives on.
THE END
Author Bio: Ani Banerjee is a retiring lawyer and an emerging writer from Houston, Texas, who was born and brought up in Kolkata, India. Her flash fiction has been published or forthcoming in Janus Literary, McQueen’s Quinterly, Dribble Drabble Magazine, Grim and Griswold, Flash Flood, and in anthologies. Find her on Twitter @AniBWrites and http://www.AniBanerjee.com.