Highway Kismet

Mila's Story

Tomorrow was June first which meant it was one more sleep until I turned fifteen. I could feel the excitement building in my stomach; I was such a sucker for birthdays.

It had always been just my mom and I, my grandparents always visited in the evenings after my grandfather got back from work and stayed until after I blew out the candles. My aunt lived too far away and since she moved, my mom and she weren't that close – she did however always send a text or call.

As for my dad, well up until my fifth birthday, he used to pick me up the next day and spend the entire afternoon with me – doing whatever I wanted. But ever since the twins were born, my mom refused to see him, and he stopped that tradition. I knew he would call late in the evening or night and ask if I wanted to spend the Saturday or Sunday with him, but looking at my mom's condition, I had been declining for a while now.

It was almost seven-pm currently and I was consumed by my thoughts that I had forgotten  I had an assignment to complete. I looked back down at the open textbook on micro-organisms, I loved Biology and the current topic we were on was one of my favorites – learning about the tiny leaving organisms in our world taught me that no matter what size one was, we all played a vital part in life.

I shook away my train of thoughts and went back to taking notes from the textbook that sat in front of me. But for some reason, I couldn't concentrate and that was off for me, as I was always a dedicated scholar, but I think the excitement for my birthday was distracting me. A few years ago, I was supposed to go to Florida with my dad and his family to visit Disneyworld but my mom was having an off day, even though she convinced me she was fine, she couldn't fool me so I canceled with my dad and never went.

My mom felt awful and ever since then she made sure to make it up to me, but we never caught a break, so this year she planned for us to visit a popular amusement park in Queensbury. It wasn't close to Disneyworld or even Disneyland, but it was a day I was going to spend with my mom and we were taking a small road trip since the drive from Queens to Queensbury was a little over three hours.

I was super excited because it felt like such a long time since my mom and I were having Mila-mom time. I missed her so much, even though we lived under one roof, we stopped spending as much time with each other as we used to.

I couldn't stop the smile on my face as I thought of all the things my mom and I would do, we were going to leave at the crack of dawn and since I was an early bird, it was no issue to get up. I just hoped that my mom would get up in time, lately, she had been struggling to sleep and when she took the sleeping pills her doctor prescribed she overslept and got up very grouchy because she was always late for work.

Thinking of all that dropped my mood, I needed to be optimistic and only focus on the good things in life – that's what I was raised to think.

My attention was diverted when I heard the front door of our little, two-bedroom apartment open. My face immediately lit up because I knew my mother was home. I dropped the pencil on my desk and bolted out of my room to the living room area.

My mom, wearing her work clothes was in the kitchen, she looked really tired as she poured herself a glass of water and took a seat at the breakfast island – she didn't seem to be in a good mood so I took slow steps into the kitchen to greet her.

I hesitated for a moment before I softly said, "Hey mom."

She took a sip of water and ran her hand through her brown hair before she turned her attention to me, "Hi cariño."

She smiled but it didn't reach her eyes, instead, her eyes were a dull green, almost brown – the spark they always had seemed to dim drastically.