Somewhere Among the Mountains
I. Maria Elena.
Now that they’d finished negotiating the streets of suburban Tucson, the busy, distracting noise they’d made had fallen away. Silence rose up in its place, a third sister, ready to ride with them all the way to California.
Maria Elena adjusted the mounted GPS, and accelerated to pass a groaning pickup truck. Cecilia had been useful in relaying the GPS’s direction when they were making their way from their mother’s former home to the freeway, but now that they were on the road that would take them all the way to San Diego, she’d gone quiet, her eyes unfocused and her fingers plucking absently at the waist of her jeans. At least she was driving, Maria Elena thought. Cecilia hadn’t protested when they’d retrieved the keys from their mother’s old neighbor, and she was doubly glad of that now. It was the natural order, that she should drive and Cecilia should ride, but it also gave her hands something to do. Maria Elena checked her rear view mirror again, then her left and her right.
“Have you talked to Mom yet?”
Cecilia rolled her head towards Maria Elena. “I texted her when we got to the car.”
“Thanks.”
“She told me to call when we got close.”
“Sure.”
