It's Only Temporary

It's
Only
Temporary

It's
Only
Temporary

Written and illustrated by

SALLY WARNER

To “The Steps”: Eli Siems, Will and Julia Bosley, and Lucy and Noah Parsons

A
nd now that he was so messed up, she couldn't hate her impossible big brother even a little, twelve-year-old Skye McPhee thought moodily as she stared out of the car's rear window. She and her parents were driving west on Interstate 40 toward the spot where Scott had totaled their other car nearly four months earlier, only three days after getting his license.

This had to be the worst field trip ever, Skye told herself. But her mom was determined that they should visit the accident site before bringing Scott home from rehab for a trial visit – and for the holiday. She thought it would help them count their blessings.

It was the third of July, and blazing hot outside their air-conditioned car. Skye opened her sketchbook and reached into her tote bag for a drawing pen.

At least Scott hadn't died, Skye thought as they passed a shabby roadside memorial probably built to honor some unluckier reckless kid – because in New Mexico, people very often placed a little white cross by the side of the road when someone died in a car accident. Then they decorated the cross with plastic flowers, which was a good reason all by itself not to die like that, Skye told herself, shuddering, because – plastic flowers! And then white grocery bags blew across the desert and got tangled up like shredded ghosts in the faded, grimy flowers, and the whole thing just got sadder and sadder.

“We've already passed Laguna Pueblo,” Skye's mother told her husband, sounding as if there were a rubber band wrapped tight around her vocal cords. “We must be pretty close. Pull over, Daniel.”

“I'm trying, if the guy behind me would just give me a break and ease up a little,” Skye's father said, his voice equally strained.

“Well, signal,” her mother said.

But her nervous dad's right turn signal had been on
for at least a mile, Skye thought, gritting her teeth and closing her eyes as her father's car swerved suddenly to the right and rolled to a stop at the side of the busy highway. A truck's horn blared as the stream of vehicles that had built up behind them whooshed by.

“There,” her father said, his voice unsteady. “Are you happy?”

“Deliriously,” Skye's mother told him. “Deliriously.”

“We're here, so let's take a look,” Skye said, hoping they wouldn't start fighting again. Not here, not now.

“Don't get out, Skye,” her mother told her, sounding scared. “It's not safe.”

“I know that,” Skye mumbled. “This was a dumb idea,” she said, growing bolder. “We can't see–”

“It's over there,” her father said quietly, pointing. “It's just over there.” He looked down and adjusted an air-conditioning vent toward his face.

Her dad had been out here before, Skye reminded herself as she tried to see where her family's other car had tumbled end-over-end that cold March night. Today, a cloudless blue sky wheeled overhead, and the gray-green scramble of nearly flat desert shimmered and stretched before her eyes, an expanse punctuated only by dark scrubby bushes and a billboard.

The only weird things about this landscape were the black skid marks on the pavement – lots of skid marks, Skye noted, although the highway was as straight as could be along this stretch – and some strange, deep-yellow scrapes in the earth that headed off into the desert as if leading to a place Skye didn't want to go.

“But – there's nothing here,” her mother said, her voice as small as a girl's. “I don't understand. What did Scotty hit?”

“Nothing,” Skye's father said. “He was going pretty fast.”

He'd probably been reaching for a CD, Skye thought, frowning – or, more likely, flipping off another driver. Scott was famous for his bad temper, after all. Maybe he'd been forced off the road, she thought suddenly; they'd never know.

Scott sure couldn't tell them. He didn't remember a thing about that night.