Realities and Alternatives

One day Mick’s family moved farther from home than Mick had known it was possible to be. He didn’t want to go, but that was the way it was. His father had left for a new job a week or perhaps a month earlier—it seemed like forever—but at least Mick got to sit in front during the long car trip to their new home. They did get to stay at a Holiday Inn, but otherwise the trip took forever—there was a lot of forever going around—and he had long since given up scanning license plates, counting cars of different makes, peering out the dusty window for various kinds of animals, and other cataloging exercises. He was half asleep when his mother left him—for just a moment, she said—alone at a roadside stop. They were near their destination, but she couldn’t wait.