All stories › Family Drama › Halfway on Route 9 › Episode 3
The Cow Sign
Episode 3 of 3 of Halfway on Route 9 by Amy Fenwick · free to read
Sunday, 4:41 p.m.
The lot I picked had a fiberglass cow on the sign and one working light. Feed store, closed Sundays, gravel, forty-one minutes from my kitchen.
My mother was in the passenger seat because she wanted to see the cow. That was what she said. She had the calendar from the fridge folded in her lap, and the red pen on its cord around her neck.
The old booster seat was in the back, empty, the one with CAPTAIN on the armrest in marker. Milo had put that there at five, when he promoted it. It had ridden in my car for a week with nobody in it, since his father bought a second one.
“This isn’t the station,” my mother said.
“No.”
“The station was thirty-five minutes,” she said. “I timed it.”
“The station was halfway to Corbin,” I said.
I got out and opened the back door. I checked the belt guide on the old seat, which did not need checking, and tugged it twice.
The cow was bigger than Sam had said, and Sam had said big. It had a chipped ear and a real bell around its neck that somebody had wired on.
“Why would anyone put a bell on a fake cow,” my mother said.
“So you can’t miss it.”
“You couldn’t miss it from a plane.”
Milo was going to like the cow. That was one thing about today I was sure of.
Sunday, 4:52 p.m.
My mother unfolded the calendar. She had the three late Sundays circled from a month ago, and the on time one after that with a check mark.
“Halfway to Corbin,” she said. “You said was.”
“Sam lives in Ashford,” I said. “Since June.”
She looked at the cow for a while.
“Ashford is twenty miles past Corbin.”
“Twenty-two.”
“That’s a move,” she said. “The plan says thirty days’ notice for a move. In writing.”
“I know what the plan says.”
“You call the mediator tomorrow morning,” she said. “That’s a violation, Leah, that’s not fourteen minutes.”
“On his weeks he drives Milo eighty-five minutes to before-care,” I said. “Every morning, and back at night. He hasn’t missed a day.”
“That’s not the point.”
“He was late because he was leaving from twice as far. He was twice as far so Milo could have his own room.”
“That is still not the point,” she said.
“I’m driving six minutes more on Sundays, Mom. Six. That’s the whole point. That’s all of it.”
She clicked the red pen twice. Then she let it drop on its cord and folded the calendar along the old fold.
“He should have told you.”
“He should have.”
“Does Milo like the room?”
“He hasn’t said. He’s not supposed to be the one who says.”
She nodded at that, the slow nod she used for things she would think about later, alone, with the television off.
Sunday, 5:00 p.m.
Sam’s car came off the road at 4:59 and stopped nose to nose with mine. Milo was in the back in the new seat, headphones on, one hand up.
“Five on the nose,” Sam said, at my window, before his door was shut.
“I saw the clock.”
He looked past me at my mother. She looked at the cow.
“He asked for Captain,” Sam said. “In my car. For the mornings.”
“The new one’s the same seat,” I said.
“I told him that.”
“What did he say?”
“He said it isn’t.”
I looked at the old seat, the gray one with the red armrest. For two years it had been the part of him that came back to me first, every other Sunday, before he did.
“He’s got eighty-five minutes in it,” Sam said. “Twice a day. I’d like him to have his name.”
“You’d give me the new one.”
“It’s the same seat,” he said.
“You keep saying that.”
I got out and unbuckled Captain and lifted it, belt guide swinging. Sam took it with both hands. He set it in his back seat next to Milo and fed the belt through.
He brought the new one around to my side. I pulled the belt through the guide and tugged it twice, the way the manual did not say.
“Put the tag in your pocket, Sam,” I said. “It’s still on the strap.”
He pulled the zip tie off with his keys and put the tag in his pocket.
Milo walked between the doors with his backpack. He looked up at the cow, and then at the bell, and then at me, and I nodded. He climbed into the new seat and buckled himself.
“Next Sunday,” Sam said.
“Five o’clock at the cow.”