SmokeLong Quarterly

While you’ve been gone, the city has built a traffic circle near the post office, the flower shop, and the diner. I wanted to tell you when it first opened, but you were departed, no longer worried about scooting around town. I drive through the interchange almost daily in your car, the olive brown RAV-4 with the license plates that begin YME. The kids have banged up my car, the tan minivan, on all sides after each taking the vehicle to college their senior years and returning the auto with inexplicable dings. The backside windows no longer close, so one of our sons tied them shut with string. You wouldn’t like seeing my car with those dents and scratches, but I don’t mind. Since you’ve been gone, I’m not as faithful to automobile maintenance anymore. I don’t travel much farther than the ShopRite, church, or occasionally the doctor. Each time a muscle or joint hurts, I wonder if that’s how you felt before your diagnosis. I’m experiencing the old age you never had. When getting out of a car, my body hurts to stand up. I’m not sure which—my muscles, bones, or joints—are the problem. As for comfort, I prefer to drive your SUV instead of the minivan now that our kids are grown. Both vehicles are worn and creaky like I feel, but they traverse the traffic circle just fine. A few years after your death, the boys wore their khaki Boy Scout uniforms and helped plant daffodil bulbs in the center of the circle. The daffodils bloom around your death date each spring. Those clumps of yellow flowers sway, and I drive and drive around the circle to see them because in a few weeks they’ll be withered. I wish you could see the daffodils at their peak. They’ve bloomed more than 10 times since you’ve been gone. Our sons continue to flourish, too. They leave beauty behind everywhere they go. They are good travelers, curious, and employed. They explore every exit. But I’m stuck in the traffic circle. You always drove. I sat in the passenger seat. Now I’m behind the wheel with nowhere to go except in circles, hoping to see the daffodils in bloom, wanting to share them with you, wanting to share everything with you.