Cover

for Kay Simon

DETOUR

Too early for spring, you couldn’t trust such blinding-white sunshine in mid-March. And the smell of damp earth thawing, reviving—too soon.

The result was, Abigail was feeling light-headed. Unreal.

A seismic sensation, as if the very earth were shifting beneath the wheels of her car on the familiar drive home.

Staring ahead, dismayed—blocking the road was a barrier with a jarring yellow sign: DETOUR.

“Damn.”

Rarely elsewhere than in her car did Abigail address herself and usually in an exclamatory/exasperated tone. If anyone had overheard, she’d have been mortified.

“God damn.”

Three-quarters of the way home, and now she’d be forced miles out of her way. For these were country roads that intersected infrequently, unlike urban streets laid in a sensible grid. She would return home later than she’d planned and have less time to herself before her husband returned from work.

That dreamy interlude, preparing a meal with care, for just herself and her husband. A fireside dinner, with lighted candles.

And she had good news to share with Allan, which she would keep for just the right moment.

Darling, guess what!

The lab report—?

Yes! Negative.

Not totally unexpected news. Not after months of treatment. But exhilarating nonetheless, for in a year of medical news not invariably good, even mildly good news is welcome.

One by one, with robotic precision, drivers in vehicles ahead of Abigail were turning onto a smaller road. She wondered at their docility—she was tempted to drive around the damned barricade.

Her house was less than a mile away. Should she take a chance and try to drive directly to it? No impediments or construction were visible in the road.

You had to resent the nonnegotiable nature of DETOUR: ask no questions, no one to ask, simply follow the “detour” on trust that it will lead you to your destination.

Was ignoring a detour illegal? Was it dangerous?

What a strange thing for Mom to do! Getting a traffic ticket, a summons, the first in her lifetime …

She was not an impulsive person. No.

Thirty years she’d lived in the same house in the suburban countryside, five miles west of Stone Ridge, New Jersey, with her husband and, while they’d been young, their several children; thirty years, the unvarying route on North Ridge Road. In all those years she’d driven into the surrounding countryside only rarely and had little knowledge of the network of rural roads. She could not recall encountering a detour, or if she had, how inconvenient the detour had been.

She’d hoped to have more time to herself in the house, in the kitchen, her favorite room in the house, before her husband returned from work. Though possibly, Allan was already home, for he’d become semiretired the previous year, his schedule varying from week to week as his (legal) services were required at his firm.