Back in the car, heading north again, the second phase of the journey began. Four hours to go. The Sacramento valley was flat as Kathy’s pancakes. The straight road disappeared in a shimmering heat haze. Jack fiddled with the radio dial, scooting past country-and-western singers singing about dead dogs, preachers preaching about Judgement Day, commercials for manure and cheap vacations in Reno. Billie squinted her eyes and tried to see mirages. The watery waves rising from the highway, then vanishing as they got closer. By eleven o’clock both children were bare-chested and the windows were all the way down and the dust of the farms was coating everyone inside and out. Up ahead, it would all be washed away in the shower in the cool basement, but for now it felt permanent. A dust-coated family.
Jack pulled over at a rest stop and they switched places; Billie drove and Jack tried to snooze. And as they approached the heart of the trip, Billie realised she was waiting. There was always a fight – she couldn’t remember a trip up the valley that did not include bickering, then loud hurled words, then hours of silence. The core of the day. Awareness didn’t ever seem to prevent it, and she was listening for its beginning.
‘Billie! Pull back, you can’t pass that truck now.’
‘Darn it Jack, you made me jump – don’t do that! You almost caused an accident.’
‘Stopped one, you mean.’
‘Do you want to drive?’
‘No. I’m going to sleep,’ he said, and closed his eyes.
‘Because if you can’t trust me to drive, maybe you’d better.’
‘I’m not listening. You just want to argue.’
‘I just want to be treated with some respect. When you’re driving, do I continually criticise you?’
‘Shut up, Billie.’
‘No, I will not. When you drive, I trust you, I relax.’
‘I’m tired, Billie.’
‘I don’t know why. It wasn’t you that stayed up till midnight packing.’
‘I loaded the car.’ He opened his eyes and yawned.
‘Which took five minutes.’
‘Jesus, that Chevy’s right on our ass. Get back in the slow lane.’
‘That’s it. You can drive.’
Brakes squealing, more dust rising, more cars honking angrily.
‘Fine.’
‘And we’re getting a dog, Jack. We all want a dog.’
‘We are not getting a dog.’
This part of the fight went on so long and was so familiar, Sam and Elisabeth ignored it and waved to strangers in other cars. Sometimes people waved back, which made them laugh hysterically, as if they’d played a trick. Sometimes teenage boys flipped their middle finger, which was not as funny. When a truck was alongside, they tried to catch the driver’s eye and pump their right arms, and sometimes the driver obliged by pulling his horn. More giggles.
‘Aren’t you two getting a little old for that?’
‘Oh, leave them alone, Jack. They’re bored.’
After a while, they played a languid game of naming the fifty states. They had fifteen more to go. Billie half listened and tried to visualise a map of the United States. What were the names of all those little states up in the right-hand corner? Eventually, Sam fell asleep and Elisabeth dozed off too, her mouth hanging open and her head jerking on the sticky seat back. When she woke an hour later, she said:
‘Stop the car, I’m going to be sick.’
‘Jack, did you hear her? Stop the car.’
‘I can’t right now. There’s no shoulder. She’ll have to wait.’
‘Can you wait a minute, honey?’ said Billie. ‘Put your head out the window. Breathe deeply.’
Elisabeth couldn’t even open her mouth to answer, the sick was so imminent. She swallowed convulsively.
‘Jack, you’d better pull over.’
‘Goddammit!’ he said as he swerved onto a rough embankment and someone honked. Elisabeth got out of the car, leaned over and retched dryly. Nothing. Billie stood just behind her, thinking: Oh no, not again.
‘Has she been sick yet?’
‘No. Come on, honey, hurry up and throw up. Your dad wants to get going.’
‘I can’t.’
‘What do you mean you can’t. Just do it.’
Elisabeth leaned over and tried to trick her stomach into emptying by making the noises of vomiting.
‘I can’t, Mom. I don’t want to anymore. I feel fine.’
‘Are you sure? We aren’t stopping again for a while.’
