LONG AGO AND FAR, FAR AWAY by Melody Scott

CHAPTER ONE

"Well, where the hell is she?" Harmony asked. He'd just come in from a construction job and was ringed with fine crusted sand saturated with sweat. He'd noticed the missing car.

Delia looked at her tired husband, amazed that anybody would work as hard as he did in the heat.

"You know where Highway Seventeen and Highway Eighty-four cross out beyond Maxwell?" She answered.

He ground his teeth. His pupils were raisins tucked into the slits passing for eyelids. "Well, yes, I know this desert better than YOU do." He leaned against the counter, then dipped his head under the faucet at the sink.

She blew off his attitude. "There's a little dirt road off Seventeen, north of that intersection."

"And?" He grabbed the dishcloth and dragged it over his head.

"You go on that road for about eight miles and there's a precipice up high on your right hand side. An outcropping with a nice flat rock to sit on. She's on it." Delia took the misused dishcloth from her husband's hand, walked over to the washing machine, pulled up its shiny white lid and dropped the cloth inside. She returned to a kitchen drawer, opened it and drew out a folded replacement and placed it over the handle of the oven door.

"So, your mother is fifty miles out in the desert, sitting on a rock," he said. Delia thought he was starting to calm down.

"Forty-five and one half miles, to our door." She smiled at him with her sweetest smile.

"Harm, why are you so angry? You don't even like my mother."

"What the hell is the matter with your family?" he flared. "She's an old woman who should not be out in the desert alone, even if she thinks she wants to be. Obviously she's not right in the head, which I could have told you a long time ago. How are you going to feel if something happens to her? She could fall off the stupid rock, for God's sake. A coyote could decide to snack on her. Some fool could shoot her."

"Look, I can't help it if she decided to die and went out to sit on that rock," Delia said with exasperation.

Maybe it's not only my mother he doesn't like, she thought but didn't say.

"Well, you didn't have to take her out there!" He pounded on the counter with a clenched fist.

"She couldn't exactly go by herself," she said calmly.

"Oh, no, she couldn't go alone to kill herself. She has to employ accomplices from her insane family! What is wrong with you people?"

"She's eighty-eight years old and she wants to die. She couldn't find her way out there by herself, so I had to lead her. Anyway, she's got her car if she changes her mind." Besides, she didn't add, I really don't care what she does any more.

Delia's mother had lived with them for a year. She'd done everything she could to undermine their relationship by siding with the choice du jour during their discussions and occasional disagreements. There was never a time when she had kept her opinions to herself. Delia was ready to try anything to change the way their life was going.

"If she couldn't find her way there, how can she find her way back?"

"Do you want her back?" She picked up the ringing phone.

"Delia! Hi, George. Yes, our mother is on a rock about eight miles out a dirt road that's a little ways north of Highway Six where it intersects with Highway Forty-two," she said into the phone.

"Bye." Delia hung up.

"That was doubtless your monosyllabic brother?" the husband asked.

"I can't help it if he doesn't talk." Is this pick on Delia's family day? she thought.

The phone rang again. "Delia!"

Harmony rubbed the top of his stubbly gray crewcut and walked out the back door.

"Hi, Dottie. Yep, Mom is on a rock about eight miles out a dirt road that's a little ways north of Highway Seventeen where it intersects with Highway Eighty-four. Time to die, you know. Yep, George just called. No, Clarice and Arlene don't know yet. OK, then, I'll let you know when I hear."

Delia hung up the phone, remembered she'd forgotten to start a load of wash. She ducked into the hallway, snagged her laundry and returned to the washing machine located in a closet near the kitchen. She threw up the washer lid and stuffed the whole load inside.

She'd always wanted a sweet mother. One who baked cookies and sprinkled words of wisdom on her children. One who helped them do homework and made sense with her explanations. A mother to be adored and loved. A mother you could talk to and share your dreams with. HER mother had death wishes.

When water and soap were under way, the machine whined like a small gas engine. It was a familiar sound, and a comfort to her somehow.

She looked down at her loose fitting batiste dress and noticed something was wrong. Where were her shoes? She hated shoes. She would be late again, and that was getting to be a habit she'd have to break. Art was her calling, so why couldn't she ever get to her class on time? Life drawing warmed her just thinking about it. Soft lines, smooth skin, textured wrinkles. It all came alive for her in that class.

© Melody Scott