Tethers

The gas station clerk, Bob, an aging lump of a man composed primarily of crooked angles and pockmarked skin, looks up as I step in, and nods once in recognition.

“Onion rings are in the back, to the left,” he croaks, gesturing vaguely.

I got you onion rings. Your favorite, isn’t that right?

“Thanks,” I say as I follow his directions. I browse the dizzying array of brightly-packaged, utterly-nutritionless foods and select the onion rings, as I do every time I’m here.

“No luck this year?” Bob asks as I drop the package on the counter.

“No,” I say, glancing down at my shoes. “It’s going to be the last, too.”

“Last?” He rings up my purchase. “You leaving?”

“Yeah. Moving to New York next week.”

Bob grunts as I hand him my credit card. “New York, huh. That’s far.”

“Yeah.”

He swipes my card through the battered cash register, and a little light on the transaction screen blinks green.

Red means stop, green means go.

“Well,” he says as he returns my card, looking at me with something that feels unsettlingly like resignation. “I’ll see you around, then.”

“Sure.” I grab my onion rings and leave quickly.

I sit down on the curb and tear the bag open slowly. My stomach twists up at the sharp, tangy smell of the onion rings, so I set the bag down on the ground beside me, and look up, past my car and the silent, solitary gas pumps, to the flat desert beyond.

Wait right here, okay? Mommy has to go do something. It’ll just take a minute.

This was the last place I’d seen her. She was tall and thin, with pale curly hair that I remember running my chubby fingers through gleefully. I don’t remember the color of her eyes now, or the exact pattern of her dress, the specific cut of her cheekbones—but I remember the warmth and security of her embrace, the eye-stinging fragrance that hovered about her like an invisible shield, the distinct feeling as she sat me down on the curb and drove away that everything was, and would always be, okay.

I sit on the curb, uneaten onion rings slowly going stale beside me, and wait as the sun begins to melt into the featureless horizon.

Yes, kiddo. I’ll be right back, promise.

As the years have passed, I’ve moved further and further from this nowhere town full of nobody people, testing the limits of the invisible string that still tethers me to this place. And every year, on this day, that string has snapped me back, sending me tumbling across miles of physical and emotional distance, back to the memories I don’t want to relive anymore, the person I don’t want to be anymore. Every year, on this day, I'd turn up at this gas station, buy a bag of onion rings, and sit on the curb to watch the sunset and to wait for someone who will never return.

Do you think it's sad? Sweet? Pathetic? Well, either way, you're probably right.

I glance over my shoulder and see Bob shuffle quickly from the grimy gas station window. It was Bob who'd first noticed me on the curb, all those years ago, clutching an empty bag of onion rings and insisting that my mother would be back soon. It was Bob who'd called 911, carried me to the cop car as I thrashed and screamed, paid the bill.

And now, it'll be Bob who sends me off for what will likely be the last time.

The sun dips fully below the horizon, leaving behind it an extravagant show—wisps of brightly-colored clouds streaking across the deep violet sky, like the angry brushstrokes of some distant, mercurial god. For all the nothing that this town boasts, the sunsets out here are truly humbling.

I get up, throw out the onion rings, take one more indulgent look around, and nod at Bob. He watches me with unblinking, unloving, nonjudgmental eyes as I climb into my car and drive away.