School was out. It was time to escape. She had already packed their bags.
Eight years ago, they’d left New York to join her husband in the Midwest and end a separation. Someone had to try, she reasoned. Their two-year-old son was following other dads in the playground. His older sister had declared herself a witch, with the power to make their father return.
Two years later, in hope and optimism, another child—a beautiful baby daughter—was born. But celebrations stopped abruptly when her dad was laid off, without cause, a day before his birthday could trigger a pension.
The injustice enraged him. He refused to plan or look for work, as an epicenter of chaos grew within their cluttered suburban ranch. Neighbors would call the police during his loud, one-sided “family discussions.”
Six years passed without change. The kids withdrew and squabbled constantly, imitating adults who could no longer communicate, listen, or even hear each other. There was no talk of therapy, alone or together. “I know more than any therapist. I should advise THEM!” he’d yell whenever the topic came up.
She knew they would have to leave, and told the kids they’d be staying with grandma for the summer. She hoped they’d figure things out from the calm of her mother’s sprawling apartment.
Then, suddenly, the check engine light went on in the getaway car, her worn-out minivan. She figured the trip would be the Caravan’s swan song, but struggled to overcome fears that something terrible would happen to them on the road.
Her husband took news of their trip well. He always seemed visibly relieved when he could be alone in the empty house. “You know where we’ll be. Get help and figure things out,” she said.
The phone rang. It was her mother. Her stepfather would be flying over to drive back with them. “It’s a stressful time. We want to support you.”
She had always hated the man, but his apparent devotion to her mom made her forgive past wrongs—and bury others so deep she no longer remembered them. At least she wouldn’t have to lead this sad journey alone.
Two days later, he appeared, smiling, at their door. He embraced her husband in a fatherly way as he chatted with the children. “Don’t worry. Just work on a plan. You can do it.”
She surrendered her car keys. It was a perfect day for a road trip and he hadn’t seen the kids or played the fun grandpa for a while. The three kids chattered away in the back rows of the clunky car, making a cheerful and reassuring noise. Maybe all would be well.
She struggled to breathe, weighed down by failure and shame, and closed her eyes as they rolled onto Route 80 East.
Why had she been so afraid to drive alone this time? After all, she was a safe—even a confident—driver. Even if she hadn’t tried to get her license until she was in her late 30s.
The minivan was her first car, bought for their new suburban life. It might not have been a convertible, but at least it was red, she joked, tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.
As a teenager, witnessing car chases on the West Side Highway, she thought she’d never be good enough, and whenever she considered her innermost fears, she always heard her stepfather’s voice, and his rough Brooklyn accent, in her mind .
An indifferent driver, he had ruined every family trip by criticizing each “dumb broad” who appeared in his mirror.
After they’d married, her mom, who had driven at 15, stopped driving and eventually forgot how. She even failed a written test—a secret she’d shared with her daughter—in an attempt to spread her wings at age 70.
And at least she could say that she had driven safely around the country and even in downtown Manhattan, alone, with bickering kids and even a crying baby in the car.
As they drove through Indiana, she recalled her husband and the early days of their marriage. He had been in political prison in his home country and she always saw him as a kind of hero. Things only started to go south once their opinions began to diverge. “You just don’t understand,” he’d say, as if a PhD in physics gave him omnipotent insight into all things.
Problems intensified after the children arrived. There wasn’t a limit or a bed- time that he failed to oppose. “You’re squelching their creativity!” How had she endured the chaos and conflict for so long, and why?
Once they reached Ohio, the kids told their grandfather about the fake safari park in Sandusky that they’d visited on their first trip out west. “We should liberate the animals!” her son cried, as the three of them devised elaborate rescue plans. Their grandfather chuckled, but, from the front passenger seat, she heard him mumble “Idiots, like their mother.” She let it go.
The sun was about to set when they arrived in Pennsylvania, the midpoint and hardest part of the journey, with hills that challenge the sleep-deprived. It was the perfect place to pass the baton. After dinner at a truck stop, she thanked her stepfather as they walked back to the parking lot.
“So now I’ll take the keys, and you can relax and see what a good driver I have become,” she said, playfully holding out her hand.
But Grandpa’s avuncular face had morphed into a smirking mask of implacable rage.
“All of you, get in the car! Now!” he yelled. They flinched, and the youngest cried. He had never spoken to the children that way. Had her tiny flash of self-confidence provoked him?
“You must be tired. Don’t be angry. I have driven solo with the kids before. We’ll split the driving!” She was disgusted to hear her placating tone, but safety was paramount. A stranger had commandeered her car.
“I’m not letting an incompetent drive me anywhere. You married the wrong man, had three kids with him, can’t afford a decent car, and now you need to be rescued.”
“Give me the keys before I call the cops!” she screamed.
“You wouldn’t dare. You people don’t have a real home anymore, anyway.”
The kids froze, the two youngest crying, as she gestured for them to stay calm. She knew she’d never win a wrestling match for the key.
“We’re arriving in 10 hours. No stops,” he growled, glowering at her. “Your mother’s Alzheimer’s test results arrive tomorrow. I need to be there. I can’t leave her in the house alone. It’s too dangerous.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? And why did you offer to help at a time like this? I could have managed. I’ve done it before.”
“Yeah right. You can’t manage anything. Just like your father. I solve problems. I don’t need to explain why or how to anyone!”
Enveloped in thick fog, the car lurched forward in disjointed zig zags along the curving mountain road, swerving from one side to the other. Rain soon fell—lightly at first, then in torrents.
“Let mom drive. You’re swerving!” cried the eldest.
“Shut up you little bitch or you’ll all be walking back.”
“At least focus on the right headlight of the car ahead of you!” their mother demanded. It was time for survival, not ego.
They drove on in silence, his rage sucking out whatever oxygen remained in the car, before the kids fell suddenly into a fitful sleep.
The next morning, they arrived to hugs and kisses, but grandma wasn’t the woman they’d seen last Christmas. She definitely wasn’t the person her daughter had spoken with on the phone two days ago.
As the kids settled in one of the bedrooms, she led her daughter to another. “So now you’ve come, with your broken little family, to steal my money and my man!” she hissed.
They couldn’t stay.
Despite that fact, and the terrifying ride, she was glad her stepfather had let his mask slip.
Childhood memories came flooding back—of relentless spying and criticism, gaslighting, insults, and her mother’s refusal to defend her.
Without a safe place, she had learned to pretend that everything was fine, accept and endure the outrageous, and solve problems alone—even, and especially, those that weren’t hers to solve.
New York was now a much more challenging city to live in than it had been when they left, but they found their way, one apartment and neighborhood at a time.
Her husband never visited or supported them. She eventually divorced him. But they saw their grandmother each week until she surrendered to the whirlpool that is Alzheimer’s.
Badmouthing her publicly, her stepfather turned old family friends against them, destroyed her mom’s will, and bought her apartment—now worth millions—installing a lover who’d been waiting in the wings for years.
Undeterred, the four of them moved forward without a roadmap, amazed to learn what they could do. And they haven’t stopped since.