Fifteen Hours

She jogged across the parking lot, baby carrier in her hand. Fast and nimble, her head hidden by her brown hood.

She’s traveling alone, I noted. Then The Poo tugged my hand.

“Hurry, Mama!” she yelled. “It’s so cold!”

***

It rained and snowed all the way from New York, the roads misty with spray. For two hours we sat still outside Columbus, anxiously watching miles and miles of red tail-lights and hoping for a break in the mass of cars standing idle.

Three lanes to two was the culprit. But the hours lost to the sheer volume of holiday travelers trying to get home put us behind the eight ball.

I looked at the clock, noting that we’d been in the car for eight hours already.

Oh, man,” I moaned. “We’re not even to Columbus yet and it’s 4 o’ clock.”

***

Her face in the harsh green lights belied her youthful slenderness. It spoke of rented housing, scraping for change and food stretched to last the final few days of the month.

She had a baby with her, and a toddler, as well. She turned to me, hearing me curse under my breath.

“They’re cleaning?” I asked her, shaking my head at the yellow sign blocking our access to the women’s restroom. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

She nodded, smiling at me.

“I know!” she said. “My kids need to be changed so bad.”

I muttered something about the men’s room, but changed my mind when I spied a man at the urinal. Instead, I shouted into the empty bathroom.

“No one’s in there,” I said. “C’mon, Poo, duck under.”

She and I bent down and went under the yellow chain, and hustled to a stall. The other mother followed my lead, and as I watched her lay the toddler on the changing station, I was suddenly, acutely, aware of the expensive watch on my wrist and the brand-new sneakers on The Poo’s feet.

I averted my eyes, watching to make sure The Poo was on the toilet. I closed the stall door, and then called out to her.

“Do you have enough wipes?”

I’d seen the mess on the little girl’s pants.

“Um, you know, I don’t,” she said.

***

This week was so long. I helped bury my husband’s grandmother, and as my father-in-law spoke at her funeral, my eyes welled up with tears.

He quoted Carl Sagan, who reminds us that the brightest stars in the sky are often dead; their light shines on us long after their existence has been snuffed out by the universe.

I looked at my sleeping son, and held tighter to my girl. I averted my face from the rest of the mourners.

My tears were not for my husband’s grandmother, but for my father, long dead. The wound opened so easily, taking me by surprise.

***

I handed her a big wad of wet wipes from my orange diaper bag.

“I had a problem once,” I explained, “and now I always carry extra.”

She thanked me, and I told her to never mind. We moms have to stick together, I said.

She told me about the traffic outside Cincinnati, how they’d sat and sat, and this was the first place they could stop. I felt like she was defending herself.

She didn’t need to.

I helped The Poo finish up, and we rinsed a bottle out in the filthy sink. I turned to see the woman and her daughters, tired, so tired.

I was tired, too.

I took The Poo’s small hand in mine and walked out of the restroom. Something made me turn back.

“Hey,” I said. “I hope you have better luck now. Travel safely.”

She smiled at me.

“You, too, hon.”

***

We arrived home at 11:15 p.m., which was really, for us, past midnight. My children transferred easily from car to bed, exhausted not only by the 15-hour car ride, but by the emotional upheaval of the past week.

This morning, as I twisted her hair into a messy knot, The Poo wept.

“I don’t want to go!” she cried. “I want to stay here and be with my meema and my cousins!”

I bit back the sharp reply sitting on my tongue and held her tight.

“I know,” I said to her. “I know.”

“Mommy, I want to be here and I want to be home,” she whispered.

Oh, how I know.