Free If I Lose Her by Greg Joseph Daily Page B

our goodbyes. I tried to convince her that there was no
reason to cry, but she convinced me that there was and then I left.

Twelve
     
     
     Northfield,
Minnesota is just shy of 900 miles from Denver, and my mother always made sure
that the 14-hour trip was part of the fun. We would leave early. I would check
the tires and the oil while she filled the car with gas. Then we would grab a
quick breakfast of coffee and muffins on our way out of town. The air always
smelled clean in the morning and with almost no one else on the roads, I felt
like we could drive until the end of time.
     Not long
after being on the road, my mother would turn on Celine Dion and before I knew
it we would both be singing ‘It’s All Coming Back to Me Now’ at the top of our
voices while cruising down I-80. We would head East through Sterling, and with
a steady hand and taking turns at the wheel, we could make Lincoln, the
half-way-point just around lunch. It was our tradition, for at least the last
five years, to stop at Sloppy Bob’s BBQ, off the highway just outside of
Lincoln, for what was just about the best pulled pork sandwich I think I had
ever eaten before or since. Then we would be back on the road with the
intention of seeing the ‘Welcome to the land of ten-thousand lakes’ sign
shortly after dark.
     Along the
way I made sure to capture frame after frame of our trip. Most of them were of
mom with her long, curly blond hair laughing behind a driver’s wheel or asleep
on a pillow leaned up against the passenger window. There was one of both of us
smiling over a plate of barbeque sandwiches and another of her paying for
something through a gas station window. As the mile markers rolled past, I
marked our trip with clicks of the shutter.
     “How are
things between you and Jo?” She asked somewhere between Des Moines and Ames.
     I put the
book down I was reading and looked out over the wide-open spaces that make up
most of Iowa.
     “Things are
good. I’m just going to miss her this summer.”
     “It’s not
necessarily a bad thing to pull back and let your relationship breathe a
little.”
     “You’re
probably right, but I want to be with her every minute. I mean I miss her
already and it hasn’t even been a day yet. It’s not the same with her as it’s
been with other girls I’ve dated. After a few weeks, maybe a couple of months,
I always found reasons that I didn’t want to be with them anymore, but with Jo
I honestly think I like her more now than I did the first day we met. She’s not
just some girl I’m dating; she’s my best friend.”
     “I know.
Maybe we can work it out so we head back early so you two have a week or two
together before school starts up again.”
     “That would
be really good, but I probably won’t say anything to her until we know for
sure.”
     There was a
long pause.
     “I told her
I loved her. It kind of slipped out one night at a baseball game I was
shooting.”
     “Did you
mean it?”
     “I wouldn’t
have said it if I hadn’t meant it,” I said, a little annoyed that she would
even ask me that.
     “How did she
take it?”
     “She said
she loved me back.”
     “Has she
ever dated anyone else?”
     “No.”
     “Well, then
be careful. Whether you two end up together, like it or not, you are her first
love and you will be the one she remembers for the rest of her life.”
     “Was dad
your first love?”
     “Oh honey. I
was twenty-one when I met your daddy and I did love him very much, but my first
love was a boy named Michael Zimmerman. I was seventeen and he was a lifeguard
at the pool near our house. God he was beautiful,” and she laughed. “You know
what I remember the most?”
     “What?”
     “I remember
his hair. He had the most beautiful chestnut-brown hair.”
     “What
happened?”
     “Like
everything else, my parents. They thought that seventeen was too young to be
dating. But boy, we had a great few weeks together.”
     “I think I
can