\n\u201cNana, they didn\u2019t pack the three o\u2019clock nuts.\u201d I braked my fourth-hand Chrysler Grand Voyager too hard onto the narrow shoulder. Nana Ludovica slammed backwards into the weed-infused foam of the ripped passenger seat. I didn\u2019t mean to hurt the woman, but I was going to give her a nice day if it killed us both.\n<\/p>\n
\nBesides, we were there.\n<\/p>\n
\nAfter a spittle-drenched series of Romanian swears, Nana hunched to fiddle with the vents. \u201cIs air conditioner or blow dryer?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIs this the place?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIs this what, Carmina?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nMy forehead fell onto the backs of my hands on the steering wheel. \u201cNana, I\u2019m Meggy. Momma is gone, remember? Is this the umbrella handle place?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nNana lifted her boxy black sunglasses. Her irritable eyes, the color of grass in August, narrowed to reptilian slits like they did when she was feeling pissy. \u201cNo Army lunkhead fence.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe base closed. No more fence.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIs it three o\u2019clock?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNo!\u201d Not a lie. It was three-oh-three.\n<\/p>\n
\nGazing forward, she tapped the dashboard twice. \u201cMeggy, see.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThat\u2019s it, right?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThat is rock look like cozonac.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nThe sole boulder loomed like a lonely brioche-shaped sentry guarding the vast salty playa to the north. Neon yellow sand radiated from its base, just as unsettlingly vibrant as on my first trip out here, after the funeral when I got it in my head to bring Nana back to the place she\u2019d always claimed was the site of the best day of my mom\u2019s\u2014Carmina\u2019s\u2014 life.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe place my mother had never talked about.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI\u2019ll unload, then let\u2019s go sit, huh?\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n
\nWe\u2019d settle in the shadow of the orangish boulder and she would retell that crazy story, and we\u2019d search and fail to find the fabled buried umbrella handle, then we\u2019d head back to Sagebrush, her \u201cmemory management\u201d home. Though I rarely visited, I loved the old Romanian bat. We shared those disapproving eyes and a sense of humor as dry as that baking earth.\n<\/p>\n
\nTook ten minutes to make the short walk to the stone. I unfolded a chair that a suburban mom forgot in the back when I\u2019d bought the Voyager, then bent to the beige, soft-sided sixer ice chest with the fancy-S Sagebrush logo (AND CONTAINING NO DAMN NUTS). I retrieved the box of Mott\u2019s apple juice they did pack.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd immediately dropped it.\n<\/p>\n
\nNana had fallen to her knees into the funky dirt at the boulder\u2019s base.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe batted me away with her gnarled mitt, caked yellow. She was okay.\n<\/p>\n
\nShe was digging.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNever marry Army man,\u201d she lectured as she grubbed.\n<\/p>\n
\nMy mother\u2019s biological father, Ludovica\u2019s first husband, Erik, ex-Army man, had been unkind. I knew little more. No one talked about Erik, though now I wondered if Nana\u2019s decades-long grudge against the Army fence and Army Jeeps was a way to vent about her Army husband. Maybe the entire kooky story was.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cBuna?!\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nShe allowed her skeletal bottom to plunk onto the sand. With trembling arms, she raised the glimmering object.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNo freakin\u2019 way,\u201d I breathed.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe tale had not done it justice. Metallic, the size of half a bagel, it was not simply pink, but iridescent pink, a pink that palpitated without rhythm, staggering, the pulse of an irregular heartbeat. It looked like the pistol Barbie might have in her nightstand at the Dreamhouse.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe were running away to my sister\u2019s in Cali-fornya. Said him we go to store. Carmina had to make water, so we stop. Two teeny teeny pie plates flew here, fighting, zzz, zzz, shooting papanasi bullets, many colors. One plate crash. Your mother found this, then my husband drove up, found us. He furious.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe family says he bailed on you two after that day. Disappeared.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cDisappeared like bug in zapper.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cReally think it\u2019s a teeny alien cannon?\u201d I didn\u2019t really think it was extraterrestrial tech, and neither did the family. An Army experiment in lighting extremely small raves, maybe.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWho knows? But for people, it provider.\u201d She deposited it in my hands.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe provider tingled, like if you could feel the ants in someone else\u2019s sleeping arm.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cYou\u2019re lazy, but good girl. You try.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nLazy. The family accused me of selfishness, of not visiting Nana enough, and not visiting Mom enough while cancer feasted on her brain. Today, Meggy The Avoidant would be utterly selfless.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cNana, this is your day.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI handed it back.\n<\/p>\n
\nI mean, I didn\u2019t think anything would actually happen.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe stuttering glow lit Nana\u2019s craggy face. The meanness that had deepened as her daughter\u2019s, and her own, mind diminished melted. \u201cCarmina was seven. She thought it majie. Put it to chin, make wish. Zzz went that fool husband. Then here come Jeeps, looking for pie plates. We bury, then drive away in hurry. I always thought they found it. Idiots.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nNana touched it to her chin. As if it tickled, she laughed, a rare sound. Then, with a shockingly gentle smile, Nana offered it again.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cMy turn, huh? Ooh. Provide me a new car and a boyfriend that\u2019s super tolerant, and\u2026\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cTsk, Meggy. You can get on your own.\u201d Nana dunked her fingers into a tube-shaped bag of Kirkland Mixed Nuts.\n<\/p>\n
\nHold up. \u201cWhere\u2019d you get those?\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nA Corvette blew by.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cKeep driving that way maniac, see where it gets you!\u201d Nana snarled.\n<\/p>\n
\nI held the handle to my chin, serious now.\n<\/p>\n
\nFor starters, provide me a Mercedes. Sexy and cool. Black, please.\n<\/p>\n
\nNo tickling buzz. My Grand Voyager had not become any grander.\n<\/p>\n
\nNana\u2019s right. I could get that on my own, eventually. How about: I wish Mom was here, alive and fine.\n<\/p>\n
\nThe bubblegum swirls faded. The family legend now looked like a rusty curl of rebar.\n<\/p>\n
\nHeavy.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt worked when it needed to, Carmina,\u201d Nana said, popping a salty walnut. \u201cNow bury. Before Jeeps comes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nI didn\u2019t tell her no Jeeps were coming.\n<\/p>\n
\nI buried the dead legend.\n<\/p>\n
\nAnd responded to my mother\u2019s name the rest of the drive back to Sagebrush.\n<\/p>\n
Patrick R. Wilson is an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA). He lives in Austin, Texas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cNana, they didn\u2019t pack the three o\u2019clock nuts.\u201d I braked my fourth-hand Chrysler Grand Voyager too hard onto the narrow shoulder. Nana Ludovica slammed backwards into the weed-infused foam of the ripped passenger seat. I didn\u2019t mean to hurt the woman, but I was going to give her a nice day if it killed us …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107940,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20129],"tags":[20130],"class_list":["post-140285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-48-summer-2023","tag-the-colored-lens-48-summer-2023","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107940"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140286,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140285\/revisions\/140286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}