Laughers

BOOK 1

THE BEGINNING OF THE STORM

ONE

Every time Candy Reynolds wondered why she had taken a job with so much travel, she remembered what it felt like not to know where her and her son’s next meal would come from. The constant, nagging phone calls because the maxed-out credit cards were past due and the late notices on her apartment door regarding rent were still stressful. Even after months of working and paying her way out of debt, she could remember the sick feeling of failure.

Financially, things had improved since accepting her position as a traveling medical sales representative. The unfortunate cost of the travel was a drastic sacrifice of time with her son, who would soon graduate from high school. Matt was a great kid and had never given her an ounce of trouble, at least nothing compared to the trouble she had caused them both when he had been a little boy.

She placed her suitcase in the trunk of her aging Honda Civic at the Colorado Springs airport, tossed her handbag onto the front passenger seat, and started the car. It wasn’t much to look at with its fading silver paint and the dent in the front driver’s fender (courtesy of an ex-boyfriend) but the vehicle was reliable. It still delivered, and she needed it to stay that way for a while.

After driving to the airport exit, Candy inserted her parking stub into the parking kiosk. The lights in front of her flashed green and the bar guarding the exit from the parking lot raised. She sighed and began the trip home. The skies that had been gray upon landing at the airport were now dark and heavy. She had lived in Colorado Springs her entire life. When heavy, dark clouds came over the Rocky Mountains in winter, and they hung up above the city, the metro area got snow, heavy snow. The forecast was for at least eighteen inches, and Candy thought the angry skies would deliver much more.

Academy Boulevard was packed with the usual late afternoon, early evening traffic. The drive home would take time. The slow going was a temporary sacrifice to get to the much smaller, more remote roads that she typically used to go home from the airport. Living in the southwest part of town had its advantages, even though it was not the nicest area in the Springs. One of those advantages was the view of Pike’s Peak and the mountain range that towered over the city. Another bonus was that she could usually avoid most of the congestion, once she cleared Academy.

She drove, progressively gaining speed, watching the snowflakes fall while avoiding the view of the row of bars on her right. She could not look at them since she had found sobriety. It had been years since she had taken a drink, but it felt like yesterday that the line of drinking establishments had been her home away from home.

Candy focused her gaze on the road in front of her as traffic began moving again, feeling a little nudge of shame. Her stomach tightened as she thought of all she had put Matt through with her drinking. She was lucky that she still had him, and yet, despite the horror show her drinking had created at one point in their lives, the part of her that craved the warm buzz of a Jack Daniels high still yearned. It still called to her, pleading for one drink. One little sip, no more. She imagined a little devil in her mind, his empty drinking glass extended, begging. Only, it wouldn’t be one little drink or one little sip. It would be one drink that led to another and another until she fell off her barstool and ended the night by staggering home with someone she didn’t know. The little devil knew that’s how it would go despite his promises of just one drink, because that little devil, the alcoholic in her, was also an accomplished liar.

The falling snowflakes were increasing in size. She forced her thoughts away from her past. She had years of sobriety under her belt, and she clung to them. They were always out in front of her, thoughts waving like the banner at a newly opened business. Each accumulated day, week, month, and year of sobriety lent validity to her new life, to her investment in her son and the future. Matt was proud of her, and that mattered more than any drink or buzz ever would. She had even noticed in the past year that he had stopped checking for stashed bottles in the apartment. For a long time, he had hovered near her when she came home to see if he could detect the aroma of hard alcohol.

He was unaware that she knew he did those things. She had never found it annoying. More than anything, it had been a constant reminder to her of the importance of her sobriety. To have made her son proud of her for so long mattered the most to her. It was even more important than their recent financial success, although they weren’t yet out of the woods when it came to money.

Candy reminded herself of her one day at a time philosophy. It was like recovering from any illness or injury, not every day would be spectacular. If healing were a line, it would not be straight, but a climbing line that dipped and jumped back up in fits and starts. As long as that line kept rising over time, though, she was on the right track. That was what had been happening since she had ditched the bottle - gradual improvement, which was good enough for her. They were getting there, and she had become a good parent. Her relationship with her son was much better than when she had been a shithead, drunken monster of an absent mother.

She turned the economy car off the busy boulevard and onto a smaller two-lane road and headed west. The intensity of the falling flakes was already gaining momentum. People were driving much slower on the back-road than they had been on the boulevard.

Matt was on her mind. She had been thinking about him throughout her recent trip. He had bought his girlfriend a promise ring and intended to give it to her later in the evening. Candy liked Kyra a lot. She and Matt, despite their youth and inexperience, had a genuine relationship. It was one to be envied, as she had never found one like it.

She was also concerned because her son wanted to give Kyra the ring before she went away to college. Long-distance relationships gave her the shudders. She had tried holding a relationship with a man who had lived in Kansas at one point and had only found failure. In fairness, Matt and Kyra were a much stronger couple than she and Stan had been.

Who knew? It could be fine, but Kyra Waters came from a family in which money reigned supreme. Her father made a mint, and her mother spent a mint. Kyra seemed to have different values than her parents, and Candy hoped it stayed that way. She had met the fabulous Ron and Kathy Waters a couple of times and had been judged by them. Their determination being that she was below them, because of her financial circumstances. They also had passed judgment on her son, even though they didn’t say it in so many words. Matt was very aware that they did not want him and Kyra together long-term. Kathy had even referred to Kyra’s involvement with Matt as a ‘phase’.

Candy made a right turn and jumped onto an even smaller road. The Honda slid a bit in the accumulating snow. For a moment she considered back-tracking and taking a much longer route. Her desire to be home for her son pushed her forward. It was important to be there for him to either celebrate his success or console him if it didn’t go well.

Kyra was headed to sunny Southern California for college. Matt would stay in town to get his general education requirements accomplished at the local community college. If Kyra turned Matt down, it would be over the distance between Colorado and California.

She took a deep breath and uttered a quick prayer that all would go well for her son. The nerves she felt were as strong, as if she were the one giving someone a ring representing long-term commitment.

As she drove, she reached across the front cabin of the car and dug in her purse for her phone. A quick call to Matt, wishing him good luck wouldn’t hurt anything. She could already hear him playing it cool, even though she knew he was a nervous wreck.

It’ll be fine, mom. Me and Kyra are good. Don’t worry.

She plucked the phone from the bag and clicked the power button.

She diverted her eyes from the road for a moment to dial and found a blank screen. Pressing the power button again did not help.

“Dead. It’s dead.”

She tossed it back into her bag. The phone had been low on power before leaving Chicago. It had been her plan to charge it at the airport, and she had forgotten. Running late to the airport had its consequences, and a phone with no battery was hers.

A gust of wind hit the side of the car. It slipped for a moment and then regained traction. A surge of adrenaline caused her to press the brake harder than she needed to, and the small Honda skidded again. One of the budgetary items she had been putting off was a needed set of new tires. She had hoped that she could get through another winter without spending the five hundred dollars it would cost. As the snow piled up in front of her, she regretted the choice to put the expenditure off. New tires would be a tremendous help in the storm.

She slowed the pace of the vehicle to twenty miles an hour. So far, other than the flashing lights of a police cruiser ahead on the side of the road, hers was the only car she had seen.

She approached the police car. Its lights strobed the falling snow in what seemed like a warning against driving further up the road. So far, her windshield wipers had done an admirable job of keeping up with the weather. Through the back-and-forth motion of the wiper blades, she could see a short police officer and another, a taller man standing beside the cruiser. Neither of them wore jackets or coats. They did not seem to notice the extreme weather.

Candy dropped the Honda to five miles an hour and crawled past the two men in the oncoming lane. She stared out the passenger side of her car as she drew even with them. Something was off. She couldn’t put a finger on what it was, but the cop seemed relaxed with the man in front of him, a little too relaxed.

She craned her neck to see through the frost on the car’s side window. As she moved past the two men, they both looked at her inside the car and waved.

It wasn’t a friendly ‘Hey how are you doing?’ type of wave. The two were laughing as they each flapped an open hand in her direction. The cop was laughing so hard that the gun on his belt bounced up and down. His gesture was an exaggeration of a neighborly hello. The two of them extended their arms and made windmilling circular motions after waving at her, which only caused them to laugh even harder.

Candy had the Honda far enough past the police cruiser and the man’s SUV that she had to switch her eyes to her rearview mirror. She could see the cop poke the man in the chest and then bend over, slapping at his knee as he continued his hysterics.

The man in front of him tilted his head back, howling with hilarity. He lowered his head and balled up a fist. His arm reared back as a wind gust covered the back of her car with snow. She could no longer see either of the vehicles or the lights of the cruiser. The sun was dipping behind the mountain peaks, making visibility more difficult.

“What the hell was that all about?”

It had looked as though the man was going to punch the cop, but they had both been laughing. It made no sense.

Chunks of snow hit the undercarriage of her car. The loud noise drew her gaze back to the road in front of her. She had drifted onto the wrong side of the road.

“You’re damn lucky no one was coming.”

She righted her course on the road, pulling the vehicle back into her lane. For the first time, a worried feeling began gnawing at her gut. She should have stayed on the main roads. The snow had come on much faster than she had expected, and much faster than was typical. She already had the heater in the compact car cranked as far as it would go, and yet she still froze. Not having a working phone made her anxiety climb even higher.

“What kind of idiot drives through a blizzard on back roads without a working phone?” She paused, realizing that she was trying to comfort herself with the sound of her voice. “Me, that’s who.”

An attempt at increasing her speed only resulted in the car sliding toward the shoulder.

“Shit!”

She righted the car and slowed again. At her current rate of speed, it would be hours before she could get back to her apartment. It was becoming difficult to see the road because there were no tracks from other vehicles to follow. When she had first turned onto it, there had been only a slight accumulation. As she pushed ahead, she guessed the storm had already dumped six inches in the area. If the accumulation didn’t slow down, she would eventually get stuck.

She saw a familiar large tree ahead. Its branches swayed in the winter wind. Snow plastered against its west-facing side. She knew the road curved away from the tree to the south and then bent back to the north on its westward course. Leaning forward over the steering wheel, she squinted into the blizzard. She could not see where the road curved away. Everything was covered in a layer of white.

She anticipated the upcoming turn and steered the car to her left. She wanted to stop and check the road, but knew that stopping the car could mean she would not get it moving again.

“Dammit.”

She pulled a little further to her left and felt the sway of uncontrolled motion. The car slid toward the opposite side of the road. She tried to increase her speed. The tires only spun in place while the car slid sideways. She pushed on the brake and turned the steering wheel in the skid's direction.

The car stopped moving, facing the wrong direction, in the wrong lane. Candy pushed the gas pedal. The car slipped further. She tried to reverse. It moved a few inches backward before the tires spun. She put the Honda back in drive and rocked the car forward. It moved half of what it had, moved backward and stalled. She continued to try rocking the Honda back and forth, hoping it would gain traction.

“Shit, shit, SHIT!” Candy slammed her fist against the steering wheel after several failed attempts. She turned on the hazard lights and grabbed her bag from the front seat. She tossed open her door and stepped into the cold. Snow blasted against her face. She zipped the top of her coat as far as it would go and shoved the car door shut. Looking to the west, she searched her memory for what was ahead on the empty road.

There had been an old farmhouse to the south. She was sure of it. It was the type of old-style house she had always imagined owning. She admired the home each time she had used the road to come home from a road trip. It was up ahead, to her left, not far off the road.

Placing one unsteady foot in front of the other, she began her trek to the house or the first sign of humanity that she could find. She needed a phone to get a hold of Matt. He could help her find a tow company, if they were even still operating.

Tears threatened to fall. She clamped her jaw shut tight and began stomping forward into the pending darkness and the raging conditions. Her resolution was to not let her emotions get the better of her.