Free Road to Thunder Hill by Connie Barnes Rose

convulsion, Alana happened to phone right then and she talked me through it. “She’ll be okay,” she said calmly. “Lay her down and rub her arms. Say soft things to her. Do it now, while we’re on the phone.” I did what she said, and Gayl came out of the convulsion looking rested and none the worse for wear. Alana’s Kevin had had one when he was two so she knew exactly what I was going through.
    â€œMaybe this explains why you were crying over your icing,” she’d said there on the lane, after I told her about my fight with Ray. “Your own psyche knew something bad was going to happen.”
    When she called earlier to see if there was something she should bring to the party I’d told her about the silly tears over the boiled icing. Adolescence was also her specialty, so she had a theory about that. “Of course you were crying. You probably don’t remember the hell I went through back when Kim turned nineteen.”
    Alana was wrong. How could I forget the day a few years ago that marked the end of what Alana still calls her “prime time?” And when hers ended, so did all of ours. We were driving along Thunder Hill road towards town in the back of Bear’s Rover one day in early September and I was noticing how everything we passed seemed to sparkle and not just the water out in the strait. I mean everything, like the leaves on the quaking aspens, the cornstalks or oats in the fields, even the spruces high up on Thunder Hill shone bright in the late afternoon sun. Up front in the Rover, the boys were yakking about music or boats, and suddenly I noticed that beside me, Alana was crying. I don’t mean she was bawling her eyes out, but her eyes were glassy with tears and she was sniffling. When I pressed her about it she blurted out, “You know, it’s not like I’m jealous because I’ve got this beautiful daughter whose function it is to replace me as a baby maker. Hell, I went through all that when she turned fifteen and men were staring at her and not at me.” She’d paused here and shuddered. “No, I think what’s getting to me is that as of today she’s old enough to get into bars.”
    â€œThat’s why you’re crying?”
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe it’s just a premonition, but I just have this feeling that nothing is ever going to be the same after today.”
    Alana was right. I can even pinpoint the exact moment our lives changed because when it happened later at the Roll-a-Way Tavern, I was dancing with Danger Dave, who everyone knows is anything but, and we were goofing around to the music, slipping into old dance steps like the “Funky Chicken” and the “Frug.”
    The dance floor of the Roll-a-Way Tavern was bouncing so hard you could see it move. The Roll-a-Way used to be a bowling alley. The dance floor was laid right over the lanes, which made our footsteps all that much louder and springier too. Danger Dave and I were laughing and I suppose my eyes were closed, my elbows and knees flapping to the music. I was working up a buzz from the rum, as well as the vibrating floor, when I suddenly realized the floor had stopped moving under my feet. I opened my eyes and talk about embarrassed. I was the only one still dancing. Danger Dave was shouting in my ear. “Isn’t that Alana and Danny’s daughter?”
    There stood Kim in the doorway, her black hair shimmering around a turquoise dress. I watched Alana rush to her daughter and link arms with her. She steered Kim to the bar to buy her first legal beer. When Kim touched the bottle to her lips, this big cheer came from the crowd and everyone toasted her on her birthday. Then things turned quite comical, when, instead of Danny dancing with the prettiest girls in the place, as he usually did, he spent the whole time with his arm fixed around his daughter’s shoulders. We even spotted him trying to cover her up