Seizure (Part IV)

This is a continuation. To start from the beginning, click here.

Omaha

Tess drove until they reached Omaha just after twilight, adamant in her refusal to cede the wheel to Maggie. She wanted to prove to herself that her episodes were unobtrusive and controllable by the exercise of her will. Midway through the afternoon, at a rest stop near the Illinois-Iowa border, Tess had a bizarre exchange with a five year-old boy while Maggie and Amanda were in line for the restroom. Tess had left the car to stretch her legs, and then, as she smiled at the towheaded lad making a starfighter fly up and down the sidewalk, witnessing his consciousness completely subsumed in an epic intergalactic struggle, she was taken aback when he suddenly pulled up as if slapped and stared at her. A young child has never stared as intently at a television screen as this little boy stared at her, and it required his parents physically moving him and driving away for the link to be severed.

“Was he staring at your unibrow?” Amanda remarked impudently as they carried their bags to their hotel room.

“Why do I even open my mouth?” Tess said, pushing past her and entering the room.

“You can bite my head off if you want, but you have to admit that that was really weird,” Amanda said, delighted with her bon mot.

“It is weird,” Maggie said resolutely. “This kid, he sounds like something out of The Children of the Corn.”

It was a flawed analogy and Tess knew it. The child was normal and, had she never appeared at the rest stop, he would have continued to be normal.

Amanda stretched out on the sofa. She had dropped a lot of weight over the summer. Maggie sat down at the desk next to her, casually flipping through the hotel guide and making notes on the complimentary notepad. Tess walked by both of them and claimed the bed by the window. This declaration was too much of an insult for Amanda to bear.

“I’m sleeping by the window, Tess.”

“The hell you are.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“You think you’re the big sister now?”

“Only if you’re talking about maturity.”

“Let her have the bed,” Maggie said, irritated. “Why shouldn’t she get the bed she wants since she’s been driving the whole way? Why should you care who sleeps where since you’re probably going to be out half the night with whatever boys you can find around here?”

“That’s not what I was going to do.”

“Isn’t it?”

For a moment Amanda was silent. Tess watched from the doorway.

“Maybe.”

“So you’ll take the couch then?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

“You want to sleep in my bed?”

“No.”

For the next installment, click here.