By White Feather
Stuart secured his daughter Lila in her car seat.
“Daddy, I can do this, you know.”
“I’m sure you probably could but I want to make absolute sure that you’re correctly secured. We have a long, long, long trip ahead of us.”
Stuart closed the car door then walked around the little white Volkswagen Rabbit and got into the driver’s seat.
“Are we there yet?”
With his seat belt fastened, Stuart turned around to see his little girl quietly giggling, “No, little monkey, we’re not there yet. I haven’t even started the car. Do you remember last year when we moved from New Mexico to Oregon?”
“Yeah, that took days and days and days.”
“Yeah, well, it took three days — mostly because we did a lot of sightseeing. This trip will be kind of like that but it won’t be nearly as long. Remember what I said?”
“Make sure I pee before I get in the car and don’t drink too much while in the car.”
“No, well yes, but I said that this trip is going to be a ton of fun. There is going to be so much for us to see. It’s going to be fun, fun, fun.”
“Well then, we better get going.”
He looked intently at his daughter then laughed, “Yes, Master.”
Turning around, he started the car and Stuart’s and Lila’s road trip began.
They were headed north to Washington State. The first half hour after leaving Ashland was familiar territory so it did not yet feel like a road trip. But once they entered new, unexplored territory the excitement began building.
“How old do ya gotta be to drive a car?”
“To get a driver’s license you’ve got to be sixteen years old.”
“Sixteen?! I can’t wait that long! It’s so unfair! This road trip would be so much more fun if I could drive.”
“But Lila, you can’t even see over the steering wheel.”
“I can if I kneel in the seat.”
“Oh yeah? If you’re kneeling in the seat how are you going to push the gas pedal and brake pedal?”
“Oh man! It’s so unfair!”
“Yeah, it’s a bummer. So, can you figure out how long you have to wait before you can drive? How old are you now?”
“I’m almost five.”
“Well, yeah, you’ll be five in three months but let’s say you’re already five. If you’re five and have to be sixteen to get your license, how many years do you have to wait?”
“How do I figure that out?”
“Well you take sixteen and subtract five.”
“Oh man!”
A long silence ensued allowing Stuart to take in the scenery (there were so many trees!) and think about his dream. He wondered if he was crazy for taking this trip.
“Eleven! I have to wait eleven years!”
“Very good! You are getting so good at math. I’m so proud of you.”
“Eleven is like forever. I can’t wait that long to drive.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll go by in a flash. Listen, you should look at it like you’re a celebrity or some special person who has a chauffeur to drive you where ever you want to go.”
“I’d rather be the chauffeur.”
Yes, thought Stuart, in so many ways you are like my chauffeur driving me all over the place and running my life. It is really you who is taking me on this trip…. it’s because of you.
After a couple of hours of conversation, singing, game-playing, and oohing and aahing over the beauty of the Oregon countryside the car finally fell silent. Turning quickly to look into the back seat, Stuart saw that Lila had dozed off.
This gave Stuart some time to think. And his first thought was, Am I totally batshit crazy for driving all the way up to Washington just because of some dreams?
Stuart had become a reader of new age writing. He had taken a serious turn towards spirituality around the time Lila was born back in New Mexico. And he was also overcome with a very strong desire to be Lila’s full-time stay-at-home mother. He wanted to raise her through those early years of childhood.
Talking with his wife, Melanie, he found out that she was really not much inclined towards motherhood and was eager to get back out into the workaday world. So once Lila was weened from her mother’s breast, Stuart and Melanie exchanged roles. Melanie went back to work and Stuart quit his corporate job to become the full-time guardian and mother to his little angel.
In the four years that Stuart had been Lila’s full-time guardian the family had moved three times; twice within New Mexico and the last move being the one to Oregon. Stuart and Melanie were looking for the perfect town for Lila to grow up in. Big cities were out of the question. Stuart wanted Lila’s childhood to be in a medium-sized town that offered all the educational opportunities she needed but without the urban stress. He was convinced that the perfect town was out there somewhere.
There was only a little over a year left in Stuart’s grand experience of being a full-time stay-at-home mother. Lila would soon be starting school and he wanted her to spend her entire twelve years of primary schooling in the same place. Stuart had grown up as an army brat and had gone to eight different schools in eight different places over the course of his primary schooling. He hated that and did not want that for his little angel.
With all the reading he had been doing, Stuart felt that he could enlist spiritual forces to help him find that perfect town. He meditated twice a day; once early in the morning before Lila got up and again during Lila’s afternoon nap. (His entire day was organized around Lila.) During each meditation he would ask spirit to show him the perfect town.
Stuart also began keeping a dream journal and worked on remembering his dreams. Each night before falling asleep he would repeat affirmations that he would remember his dreams then he would ask spirit to show him the perfect home in the perfect town that he was looking for. In the morning he would dutifully record his dreams in his dream journal.
It was about a month before he and Lila left for Washington that he started having a recurring dream. The dream was very short but it was exactly the same every time. (According to his dream journal, he had the dream nine times.)
In the dream Stuart was standing in a small meadow surrounded on three sides by a forest of very tall trees. Lila was there skipping about through the tall grass and wildflowers of the meadow. At the end of the meadow where there were no trees the land sloped downward towards a small creek. On the other side of the creek the land rose sharply up to a ridge covered with forest.
And above that forest on the other side of the creek loomed a huge snow-covered mountain. Stuart had seen enough photographs of Mt. Rainier to know that the mountain in his dreams was indeed Mt. Rainier. In the dream he looked around at the tall trees then at his daughter playing then down at the creek then up at the giant mountain. And that was it. That was the entire dream and it was exactly the same every time.
“Daddy, I gotta pee.”
The angel had awakened.
“Okay darling, I’m actually surprised you lasted this long. As you can see we’re coming into a town. It’s called Salem. It’s a little past lunch time so why don’t we stop at the first restaurant we see and then you can pee and then we’ll have lunch. Can you make it a few more minutes?”
“I don’t know. I guess so. I’m really hungry now, too.”
The first restaurant that appeared was a Burger King. It had been a very long time since Stuart had eaten at a Burger King. It was, in fact, very rare that the family ever ate out. Stuart cooked three meals a day, seven days a week, for his family. With Melanie being the breadwinner Stuart had to work within a smaller budget than when he had been the bread winner. It was far less expensive to eat at home and Stuart had become quite proficient at stretching the grocery store money while still providing his family with good healthy food. He also wanted to keep Lila from getting hooked on junk food.
But this was a road trip so most all of the rules were out the window.
Once in the restaurant Stuart pointed at the girl’s restroom and Lila quickly headed in that direction. Stuart called out after her, “Are you sure you’re gonna be okay?”
Without breaking stride Lila turned her head around, “Daddy, I’m almost five!”
“I’ll be right here,” he said but she was quickly in the restroom and probably did not hear that. That’s when Stuart realized that he had to pee, too, so he went into the boy’s restroom to pee as quickly as he could before Lila came out.
It turned out that Stuart and Lila came out of their respective restrooms at the same time.
“Hey, I thought you were gonna wait over there.”
“So you did hear that. Well, I realized that I really had to pee, too.”
“Well, let’s go. I’m STARVING!”
Lila marched to the front counter with Stuart in tow.
Stuart and Lila placed their trays of food on a table next to a window that looked out over the interstate highway. It was not exactly a scenic view but for a road trip perhaps it was appropriate.
Having sat down, Stuart immediately commenced to unwrap his Whopper. Lila immediately shoved a ketchup-drenched french fry in her mouth. The paper crown that came with the kids meal sat on the table.
After taking his first bite of hamburger, chewing it and swallowing it, Stuart asked, “Aren’t you gonna wear your crown?”
“Daddy, that crown is for boys! I’m not a king. I’m a queen…. well, actually I’m still a princess… but I’m not going to wear a boy’s crown.”
“I see. Well, this is a Burger KING, not a Burger QUEEN.” He placed a french fry in his mouth.
“That’s not fair!” She bit into her kid’s burger.
“No, you’re right. It’s not fair. You know, you should have brought your tiara that Grandma gave you for Christmas and you could have worn that.”
Lila slammed her hand down onto the table, “Oh my God! Why didn’t I think of that? Next time we go on a road trip remind me to bring my tiara, okay?”
“Okay. I’ll do that.”
They ate in silence for a couple of minutes then Lila, some food still in her mouth, spoke up, “You know, Daddy. You’re a boy. Maybe you should wear the crown.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Maybe you should.”
Stuffing a couple of French fries in his mouth, Stuart reached over and picked up the paper crown. Sitting up taller in his seat, he ever so regally placed the crown atop his head.
Lila immediately broke out in a giggling fit, “Oh Daddy, you look so goofy!”
Lifting his nose a little higher, Stuart responded in his butler voice, “Why thank you, my queen.”
It was a long lunch filled with conversation and laughter and giggling. Observations were made, questions were asked and there was discussion about things that were not fair. After the meal and after another visit to the restrooms Lila and Stuart were on the road again heading north.
While Stuart was driving the speed limit, Lila’s mouth was going a hundred miles an hour. She was a talker. Occasionally, she would slip into prolonged fits of non-stop talking. When that happened all Stuart could do was nod his head for he could not get a word in edge-wise. While her talking fits eventually grew tiresome, it was nice to see what was going on in her little head.
Her talking fit finally petered out as they entered Portland. “Lila honey, we’re now in a big city called Portland. As you can see, the traffic is now getting a lot busier and I’m going to have to really pay attention to driving. Big cities have lots and lots of cars. So just take a good look at Portland so you know what a big city looks like.”
They drove in silence for several minutes.
“Daddy, is that mountain over there with all the snow on it…. is that Mt. Rainier? The mountain you saw in your dream?”
“No, sweetie. That’s Mt. Hood. It’s a different mountain.”
“Mt. Hood?! That’s pretty stupid. They named a mountain after the hood of a car?”
Stuart laughed, “No, Lila, if my memory of history class serves me correctly, I believed they named it after some guy.”
“Some guy? What did they name Mt. Rainier after?”
“Some guy.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Yeah, but you know what? Between Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier there is another big mountain that they actually named after a girl. It’s called Mt. St. Helens.”
“Cool. I bet it’s the prettiest mountain of all. Where is it?”
“We’ll see it soon. So what do you think of all those tall buildings?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Okay, real soon we are about to cross over a very tall, big bridge and when we get to the other side we’ll be in Washington.”
“Finally!”
“Now when we’re on the bridge I want you to look down below and you’ll see a really, really big river. That’s the Columbia River.”
“What did they name the river after?”
Stuart lied, “I don’t know.”
And suddenly they were on the bridge.
“Daddy, Daddy! I see a boat down there on the river!”
Stuart glanced to his right but being on the left side of the car he could not see as far down as Lila could being on the right side of the car.
“I wanna go on a boat ride.”
“Well, someday you will. I promise.”
And then suddenly they were in Washington State.
After experiencing the dream for the sixth time Stuart became convinced that this place must really exist and that he must go there to find the home he was looking for. But the only certainty he could ascertain from the dream was that the place was very close to Mt. Rainier. He needed more details.
So in his meditations he began asking spirit where exactly this place was. No information came to him but he kept asking every time he meditated and every night before falling asleep. Finally, on the day after the ninth and final occurrence of the dream he was meditating and he asked, “Where is this place?”
And suddenly a voice spoke in his head. It was not Stuart’s voice. It was not the voice he regularly heard in his mind. It was someone else’s voice!
And the voice said, “It is 13.2 miles due east of Yelm, Washington.”
Stuart was so startled by this voice coming out of nowhere that he was immediately jolted out of his meditation. He got up and went to the shelves by his desk. From a stack of folders and books and magazines, he pulled out the road atlas he had used in navigating the trip from New Mexico to Oregon.
He frantically searched through the road atlas until he came to the page with a map of western Washington State. It did not take long to find the town of Yelm, which was located just west of Mt. Rainier. And there was a road heading due east out of Yelm towards Mr. Rainier. Setting the atlas down, Stuart immediately started planning the road trip.
That evening he told Melanie about his meditation experience. Her first reaction was to roll her eyes (she had little patience for spooky new agey things). He told her that he felt that he simply had to go to Washington to find this place. He reiterated how strongly he felt this and how important it was.
“Well, I can’t take any time off from work right now. And I’m doing that volunteer work at the theatre on weekends. If you really, really have to go — and I see that you do — you and Lila will have to go without me.”
“Daddy, are we there yet?”
It had become overcast and a light rain was falling.
“We’re almost there, honey.”
“Where’s the mountain?”
“We can’t see it because of the clouds but it should be somewhere over there,” he pointed. “Now listen, when we get to the town the first thing we’ll do is check into a motel, okay?”
“Yippee!”
“Then in the morning we’ll go looking for the place.”
“Can we go out for breakfast?”
“You bet we can. And you know what? You can have WHATEVER you want to order. You’re the boss. Okay?”
“I want pancakes and syrup and sausage.”
“As you wish, my angel.”
In the motel room that evening Stuart ordered a pizza while Lila got into her kitty cat pajamas. Stuart dug in his travel bag for the pajamas he brought. When he was in bed at home with his wife he slept in the nude but if he was going to sleep with Lila then he needed pajamas. As Lila grabbed the TV remote and got into bed he went into the bathroom to change. He had barely gotten his pajamas on when Lila let out an ear-piercing scream.
He rushed out of the bathroom, “What’s the matter?”
“Daddy! Daddy! Pee Wee’s Big Adventure is on TV! And it’s just starting. Can we watch it? Please?”
“Lila, we’ve seen that movie like five times.”
“So,” she said defiantly, “what difference does that make? It’s the perfect movie for a road trip cuz Pee Wee is on a road trip looking for his bike.”
“Well, that’s true. It is kind of appropriate. Hey, you’re the boss so if you wanna watch that movie then that’s the movie we’ll watch.”
“Is the pizza ready yet?”
“Honey, I just ordered it like four minutes ago. It takes longer than that to make a pizza and then drive it here.”
“That’s not fair. I’m STARVING!”
Although Stuart was not a fan of eating in bed, he and Lila ate pizza in bed while watching Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. Lila practically had the entire movie memorized so she often mouthed the words as the actors delivered them. She was getting quite proficient at impersonating Pee Wee Hermann. There was plenty of laughing and giggling and much fun was had.
After the movie, Lila asked, “How old do ya gotta be to ride a bike?”
“Five.”
“I’m almost five!”
“Yeah, ALMOST. But you’re not five yet.”
“That’s not fair!”
What Stuart did not mention was that he and Melanie were planning on buying Lila a bicycle for her fifth birthday.
The next morning while Lila was in the bathroom getting dressed and brushing her teeth Stuart opened the motel room door and stepped out onto the balcony walkway. The sun was shining brightly and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the brightness. Placing his hands on the metal railing, he looked out over the motel parking lot to the park on the other side of the street. The park had a playground but there were no children playing.
And then Stuart turned his gaze to the left and that is when he saw it. Looming ever so large over everything around it was Mt. Rainier. He had seen many photos of the mountain but had never seen it in person. Shivers ran up and down his body as he stared at the mountain, feeling its overpowering presence.
After a few minutes he broke his reverie and called out into the motel room, “Lila! Come look.”
As Lila stepped outside Stuart pointed at the mountain, “Look, there’s Mt. Rainier.”
Lila shielded her eyes from the sun, “Oh my God. That’s a really, really big mountain. It’s the biggest mountain I’ve ever seen in my whole life! And that’s a lot of snow on it even though it’s summer.”
“Those are glaciers.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s thick, deep snow that stays on the ground all year.”
“You mean we could have a snowball fight in summer?”
“Yeah, but we’d have to climb up to the top of the mountain.”
“Oh my. I don’t know about that, Daddy. That mountain looks too big to climb.”
Not being a recreational mountain-climber, Stuart agreed.
“Daddy, can we go have pancakes now? I’m STARVING!”
“Well, first I need to brush that beautiful angel hair of yours and then it might be a good idea if you put on your shoes.”
Lila looked down at her bare feet, “Oh, right.”
After a very long breakfast that included copious amounts of giggling and far, far too much maple syrup, they got in the car. Just a few blocks away from the pancake restaurant Stuart stopped at a gas station to fill the gas tank and to clean the windshield which was quite dirty from yesterday’s driving. He wanted a crystal-clear view of everything to be seen. He also cleaned the side window next to Lila’s car seat.
Stuart drove around the town a bit until he came to the highway that headed east out of town, “Okay Lila, here we go.”
As they passed the Yelm town limit sign Stuart looked at the car’s odometer and took note of the mileage numbers, “Okay, we’ve got 13.2 miles to go.”
“That’s too far!”
“Honey, that’s nothing compared to how far we drove yesterday.”
“Are we there yet?”
Stuart said nothing and just laughed.
The two-lane country road cut straight through lush green forest. There were almost no houses or farms; just forest. And then the road ended in an intersection with another country road that went in a perpendicular direction to the road they had been on. At the stop sign Stuart looked at the odometer and saw that they had traveled 11 miles. They had 2.2 more miles to go but now there was a dilemma. Should Stuart turn left or right?
Taking a deep breath, Stuart cleared his head of all thinking. He then got an urge to turn right and so he did. Like the road they had been on, this one also cut through forest with no homes or buildings. Stuart kept checking the odometer and just as it reached 13 miles driven he saw a dirt road leading off into the forest to his left. On an impulse he turned onto that dirt road.
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
The dirt road was very narrow and was completely shaded by the tall trees on either side of it. The road was also rather bumpy so Stuart drove very slowly. Volkswagen Rabbits are not made for bumpy dirt roads.
Soon they came upon a realtor’s For Sale sign stuck in the ground just to the right of the road. Stuart pulled off the dirt road onto a small grassy spot next to the sign. Looking at the odometer, he saw that they had traveled exactly 13.2 miles from the Yelm town limit sign!
Stuart turned off the car and got out. He walked around the car to get Lila out of her car seat. Walking hand-in-hand, they took a dirt path that led through the trees away from the dirt road. After a short walk the path led into a small clearing in the forest.
Letting go of Stuart’s hand, Lila skipped ahead into the meadow her arms outstretched as she waved her hands over the tops of the tall grass and wildflowers.
Walking into the middle of the meadow, Stuart looked around at the tall trees. The meadow was surrounded on three sides by forest. On the open side the land sloped downward to a small creek. On the other side of the creek the land rose abruptly to a forested ridge. And above those trees loomed Mt. Rainier in all it majesty!
It was the place in his dreams! Everything was exactly the same as in the dreams. Stuart stopped walking and his mouth dropped open. His heart began racing and electric tingles shot through his body.
How could it be? How could he dream about a specific place that actually existed without ever having been there? Stuart did not think that was even possible. He rubbed his face with his hands and shook his head. He then slowly turned around to look at everything. Every last detail was exactly the same as in those 9 dreams. Exactly.
Stuart was beside himself. He could not even think. He knelt down on the ground and sat back on his heels, letting the waves of euphoria of what he was experiencing wash over him.
“Daddy, look!”
He looked over at his daughter who was pointing at something on the other side of the creek. Looking over there he saw a doe and her fawn walking along the tree line. Now that’s got to be a good sign, he thought.
After the deer disappeared into the forest Lila came running over to Stuart, “Daddy, I wanna live here with the deer.”
Stuart smiled, “You do?”
“Yeah this place is so pretty. And there’s Mt. Rainier right there.”
“It sure is beautiful. But do you notice what’s missing?”
“Huh? What’s missing?”
“There’s no house. How can we live here if there’s no house to live in?”
“Uh…. we could build one.”
“I wish. Unfortunately we can’t afford to do that.”
“That’s not fair! If we could build a house here I’d have the best backyard in the whole world. I could play with deer and walk through the forest and have so much fun.”
“Well, we’re here now so why don’t you have some fun.”
Just then a butterfly flew by and Lila chased after it.
Stuart and Lila spent over an hour in that magical meadow then after writing down the phone number of the Realtor on the For Sale sign, they drove back to Yelm. Stuart was going to go back to the motel room to call the realtor but soon after entering Yelm he spotted the realtor’s office and pulled into the parking lot next to the office.
Stuart and Lila sat in chairs in front of a desk where a woman with purple hair was talking on the phone. She eventually hung up the phone and looked at Stuart, “Sorry about that. Now, in regard to that property you asked about, it sure is beautiful, isn’t it?”
Stuart nodded.
“Unfortunately, it just sold. The family that bought it signed the papers just this morning. They’re going to build their dream home there.”
“That’s not fair!” shouted Lila.
Stuart patted Lila’s shoulder, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
With opened mouth, the woman looked at Lila and then back at Stuart, “Uh…. well…. uh, we do have a lot of other properties listed if you would like to take a look at them.”
“Actually, thanks, but I don’t think we can really afford to buy anything right now.”
The woman again looked at Lila then back at Stuart, “We do have a few rental properties.” She shuffled through some papers on her desk then handed Stuart a piece of paper with rental listings.
He looked at the page and his first thought was, Holy crap! Rentals are not cheap around here.
The woman then handed Stuart her business card, “If there’s anything at all I can do for you just give me a call.”
“Thank you.”
Stuart and Lila left the realtor’s office, got back in the car and drove to the motel. Inside the motel room he looked a the road atlas but then quickly threw it on the bed. He looked again at the page of rentals then threw that down atop the road atlas. He then began pacing.
Why would spirit send him on a wild goose chase? Was spirit playing with him? Why would he be shown in minute detail a beautiful place in response to his desire to find the perfect home for his family with very specific details on how to get there, only to have the rug slipped out from under him? And why did spirit lead him to a place that didn’t even have a house on it? He was looking for a home in a town near schools, not bare land way out in the middle of the forest. Yes, the land was idyllic but it did not meet his criteria for a perfect home for Lila to grow up in. And what would Melanie think when she found out that the road trip was in vain?
“Daddy, are you sad?”
Stuart stopped pacing and sat down on the bed, “No, honey, I’m just confused. I really thought we could find the perfect home to move to. Everything was working out so well and then it all slipped through our fingers.”
“Maybe your dreams were just teaching you how to follow your dreams. Maybe it was just practice. Maybe we gotta go on a whole, whole lotta road trips before we finally find our new home.”
“How did you get so smart, Lila?”
She shrugged her shoulders, “I dunno.” She then sat down on the bed next to him.
“I guess maybe this trip wasn’t a complete waste.”
“Daddy, do you remember what you said?”
“Huh? What?”
“You said that this road trip was going to be fun, fun, fun!”
Stuart smiled, “Oh, Lila, you are such an angel.” He hugged her and kissed her soft cheek, “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Daddy. So what are we going to do now?”
Suddenly, Stuart had an idea. He stood up, “Come on, we’re going across the street.”
“What?”
Stuart and Lila went to the playground in the park across the street from the motel. Back home in Ashland Stuart took Lila to the neighborhood park and playground almost every single day. It was important to get out of the house, to get some fresh air, to play with other kids, to get some exercise, and to have fun. It may be silly to travel as far as they had just to go to a different playground but, as Lila said, the road trip was first and foremost about having fun — and what better way to have fun than on a playground?
“Oh my God, Daddy! That slide is really, really tall. It’s way taller than the slide back home.”
“Yeah it is but that means it will be even more fun.”
“I don’t know. It’s really, really tall.”
“Listen, why don’t I go up and down the slide first to make sure it is okay then I’ll go up behind you so I can catch you if you fall, okay?
“I don’t know.”
So Stuart went up and down the slide and then followed Lila up the slide. She screamed with delight coming down the slide, “Oh Daddy, that is more fun than the slide back home.” All her fears evaporated and she went up and down the slide countless times, screaming each time she slid down.
For about an hour Stuart and Lila played on the playground. In addition to the slide, they swung on the swings, played on the monkey bars, and they took turns pushing each other on the merry-go-round.
“Lila, I’m exhausted. I’m going to go sit on that bench over there and rest a minute. You keep playing.”
“Okay.”
Catching his breath, Stuart watched Lila play. Two other kids had entered the playground and she was now playing with them. Lila was most emphatically not shy.
Stuart then turned his gaze to look at Mr. Rainier standing sentinel above everything. Did he really need a reason to come here and see that beautiful mountain and have fun, fun, fun with his daughter? Did he already have what he was looking for?
Lila came running to the bench and sat down next her father, “Whew, I’m exhausted, too. I’m plum tuckered out.”
Stuart laughed. Sometimes Lila said the darndest things.
Catching her breath, Lila looked over at Mt. Rainier. Stuart stared at her beautiful little face and he realized that he had never been happier than he was at that moment.
Lila then turned to look at him, “Is it lunchtime yet? I’m STARVING!”
Stuart laughed some more, “Honey, how on Earth can you possibly be starving after that humongous pancake breakfast you had?”
She shrugged her shoulders, “I dunno.”
Stuart looked at his watch. It was a little after 2 pm, “Listen, when we’re done playing here maybe we’ll drive downtown — if this town has a downtown — and we’ll just do some sight-seeing. We won’t be looking for anything; just looking and having fun. Maybe we’ll find a place where we can get a taco or something for a snack, okay?”
“Okay…. Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“You keep calling me your angel. What’s an angel?”
“What’s an angel? Uh…. well…. uh…. an angel is someone who doesn’t have a body and since they don’t have a body they’re invisible. But they are so full of love that they follow people who do have a body around to help them and guide them.”
“But I’m not invisible. I have a body. How can I be an angel?”
“Well…. uh…. you see, sometimes an angel will be so full of love that they want to have a body to be with the ones they love who do have a body so they wait for a baby to be growing inside its Mommy’s belly and they go inside that baby’s body so that they can be born with a body and the ones they love can see them and they can all live together and the angel can spill out all the love that they are full of.”
“So I’m your angel?”
“You sure are.”
“So are you my angel?”
“Oh honey, I really, really, really, really try to be. I am so full of love for you.”
“I love you, too, Daddy.”
They hugged then sat back against the bench as they looked out over the playground where now several children were playing.
“I miss Mommy.”
“I miss her, too.”
“When are we going to go home?”
“We’ll leave first thing in the morning, okay? In the meantime, every last minute of our road trip will all be all about fun, fun, fun and nothing else.”
“Okay.” Lila abruptly turned to Stuart, a huge smile on her face, “I’ll race you to the slide!” She sprang off the bench and ran towards the slide.
Stuart got up and ran after his angel.
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Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction. Photo by Pixabay. Thanks for reading and subscribing…
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Sometimes I wish I can go on a road trip with someone who can tell me stories about "spookey new agey things" that I can relate to. 😊