To Be Alive
by Mary K. Williams

         The air was cold.
         It is strange, the things that one recalls when thinking back upon a dim memory, but the first thing I remember about that day is that the air was cold, and being grateful that the sweater my sister lent me was thick enough to ward off Fall's early chill.  The wan golden light of the newly risen sun filtered through dusty car windows, picking out the places where the knit had gone fuzzy and dancing with unjust glee whenever we passed a stand of crooked oak trees.  It was black; not the deep, rich color of brand new clothing, but a worn and comfortable black that had seen many seasons and would probably see many more.  It didn't fit too well, but I didn't mind.  I was grateful because I didn't have any nice black clothing of my own.
         Hard, pebbled gravel crunched under the tires as my mother pulled the car to a stop next to a ditch.  Glancing out the window at the brush-covered chain link fence only feet away, I remembered that the older areas of town were prone to rattlesnakes and debated the wisdom of leaving the sun-warmed interior of the car.  The seconds that ticked by as I stared through the window were an eternity.  For a moment it seemed that my mother and sister, seated in front of me, were sharing similar thoughts, but then their doors opened and I was required to follow suit.
         Chatter, falsely bright and inane, filled the air to break the silence amongst us.  Aloud we noted a lack of automobiles or people and wondered whether we ought to go on ahead.  My reluctant feet seemed glued to the ground as I added my own insights, saying anything to keep brooding silence from descending.  I stepped over to stand closer to my older sibling, watching her covertly out of the corner of my eye, knowing even as I cracked the occasional joke that no amount of humor would be able to spark a smile today.  Tired lines etched her visage, giving her the rare appearance of her true age, even as the tree-filtered sunlight glittered through her strawberry blonde hair like strands of heatless flame.
         The distinct scratch of other vehicles driving into the gravel could be heard behind us as we wandered a short distance through a simple iron gate and up a gradual incline.  Here the dried weeds were cut to reveal the hard, barren earth beneath them.  In the distance ahead we could see the mottled green of the normally well-kept lawns surrounding a large bronze statue, its sparse colors struggling against the oppression of the recent drought to provide a comforting spot of color within the shadowed landscape.  We passed a single row of tangled, thorny bushes, heavy with their burden of rust-colored rose hips, before coming to a stop near a familiar stretch of ground.
         Time seemed to move at a blur, but I remember seeing faces, vaguely familiar, and the voice of my mother repeating names in an undertone to us as they approached.  Some of the names were ones that surprised me, but when my sister or I looked askance at her she would just repeat that we hadn't seen them "since you girls were in diapers".  One older man, cleanly shaven with close-cropped hair the color of a wild pigeon's wings, stood out from the rest.  He greeted both my sister and I by name.  Polite, but slightly confused, we answered and spoke for some time about the occupations my sister and I now held.  As he left, we posed the now-familiar question to my mother, who looked genuinely surprised for the first time as she mentioned the name of an old family friend we often played ball with as children.  The last time my sister and I had seen him, his hair was as dark as my brunette locks, curly, down to his shoulders, and matched his thick, long moustache.
         We sat for a while, then, in a front row of chairs as a stranger spoke to us about virtues that felt alien to my ears.  I knew I should cry, that it was expected, that if I were a good and true person I would not even be having these thoughts.  But, I could not shed a tear.  Instead, I looked at my sister, and my eyes burned with sorrow for her at the pain I could see that she felt.  I wrapped an arm clad in a borrowed sleeve around her, gave her a hug, and she held my hand.  I loved my sister, as I did not love the person being described, and if that meant sitting through a thousand years listening to a man paid to describe someone he did not seem to know, then I would do so willingly.
         Silence descended upon us as we walked away from the crowd still lingering upon the dry, weedy hilltop, down to the car, and carried us as we drove through the twisting roads that lead to the highway.  Once upon that familiar stretch of concrete a tension seemed to break in all of us, even my sister, for the conversation that sparked then was as lively and energetic as the full morning sun that shone upon us.  We pointed out buildings, familiar as old friends, as we drove past them and spoke of the events of the day that yet lay ahead.  There were things yet to do, errands yet to make, and though we were exhausted we had left much of our burden behind us.
         The smell of diesel fumes and burning rubber filled the air when traffic on the highway slowed.  I could feel a familiar tightening sensation fill my chest as I rolled up the window to block the worst out.  My sister complained aloud of the harshness of the scent, placated only by my mother's patient voice reminding her that it would pass once they were through town.  Although this was no new occurrence, we were all exhausted, and mentioned upon more than one occasion the simple desire to return home.
         It surprised the three of that the odor did not, in fact, cease once we were past the large town and its clogged highway interchange, but worsened.  Our speech grew worried as it intensified, but each of us separately stated that our close proximity to home made each of us loath to stop and locate the source of the problem.  As we reached the exit ramp closest to our home, my mother mentioned a jarring sensation in the steering wheel.  A rapid decision was made to stop at the first available gas station.  Although clearly having trouble steering, the traffic lights for us were all green, and my mother was able to safely guide our smoking vehicle to the relative safety of the gas station's parking lot area.
         We must have made a sight.  Three women, clad all in formal but somber hues, standing next to a smoking station wagon at one of the busiest road intersections in town.  No one, however, stopped to help us until the auto club tow-truck we had called finally reached our location.  He popped the hood of the car, which had mostly stopped venting smoke by now, to look inside.  Only a minute passed before he furrowed his brow and leaned down under the edge to look at the front passenger side of the car's wheel well.  Several more minutes ticked by before he straightened up again, and advised us that there was likely a problem with one of the axles.  There had been a fire that had evidently put itself out.  He mentioned that we were quite lucky that we stopped when we did; there was a good chance the wheel could have broken the rest of the way off, and we would have had a more serious car accident.
         As the kindly tow-truck driver hitched our car to his vehicle, my sister and I volunteered to walk home.  The distance was not far, and there was clearly only room in the tow-truck for one more person.  We were upon a familiar route, one we normally took when walking home from the supermarket, and knew very well that the walk was easier on us than it was on our mother.  As she slowly climbed into the truck's cab we set off, knowing even as we did so that the truck would arrive before we did.  As we strode, we talked.  My sister even smiled.  We were reminded what it was like to be happy to be alive.