Take Me On

Haley

It’s our second day on the road and we’re taking it slow to California because John’s car constantly threatens to spontaneously combust. Out of the four of us, only Maggie is excited about the move with the promises of beaches and waves and all the chicken nuggets she can eat.

I wish I could be excited about chicken nuggets. I wish I could be excited over anything.

To give the car time to rest after pushing it two hundred miles, we’ve stopped off in the middle of nowhere Missouri to let Maggie climb on the largest bale of hay known to man. She giggles in the distance and I roam the inside/outside flea market associated with the gas station.

My father sits on the curb and absently watches Maggie and the farmland. It’s a strange, numbing sensation each time I see him—as if he died two days ago and I’m at the funeral home staring at the empty shell of a body.

On the corner of the sidewalk, a dealer hangs a punching bag from the ceiling of the sidewalk overhang. My fingers whisper against the vinyl and the man notices. “Got it this morning. Do you have a brother or boyfriend who might be interested?”

I pivot on the ball of my heel and throw a back kick followed by an elbow to the “gut.” The wooden ceiling trembles as the bag swings. I catch it with both of my hands and smirk at the seller. “No, I don’t.”

Instead of frowning, like I expect, he flashes a half-tooth grin. “You’re good.”

“Thanks.” The pride inside breaks through the numbness.

“My grandson watches that MMA. He was telling me a few weeks ago that he saw two women fight and I couldn’t believe it. Wasn’t that MMA though. It was something else.”

“Muay Thai?”

“That’s it. Do you fight?”

“I used to.”

The old man eases down into a worn lawn chair that creaks under his frail body. His skin has the consistency of leather—too many days spent in the sun. “Shame on the used to.”

Right. A shame.

“Why did you stop?”

The question catches me off guard and because I don’t know him and don’t owe him an explanation I wander away and end up at the bumper of the car next to Mom. She shouts encouragement to Maggie as my sister struggles to the top.

“She doesn’t think she can do it,” says Mom.

I smile, remembering how she almost beat me a few months ago on the monkey bars. “Maggie can do it. She has a ton of upper-body strength.”

Maggie’s arms visibly shake, but she’s almost there. Thinking how awesome it will feel within me to see that victorious smile on her face when she reaches the top, I silently will her to dig deep and find that last oomph of energy. One of us needs to accomplish a goal.

Right as Maggie almost reaches the top of the bale of hay, she lowers her head. I step toward her. No. She’s almost there. “Keep going, Maggie!”

“I can’t,” she yells.

She can. She has to. One of us has to. I take off for the field, running over the damp ground, watching as she clutches her fingers into the hay. “You’re almost there. Just keep going!”

I reach the bale. Her sneakers dangle near my head. I could place my hand near her foot and nudge her up, but this overwhelming urge inside me says that if Maggie’s going to be proud, she needs to do it on her own. She needs to know she’s capable.

“Catch me,” Maggie calls.

“No!” I shout and hate how hard it came out, but she needs to listen. “You’re almost there. Dig your feet in, push up off with your legs, then pull yourself up.”

“Haley—”

“Do it, Mags.”

She mutters something that I’m sure is an insult in my direction, then kicks at the hay until she discovers a foothold, then struggles up the rest of the way. The sun distorts my vision of Maggie and I step back, shielding my eyes, but the moment I make her out standing on the top with her arms in the air I laugh. Clapping. Shouting.

She did it... She did it, and then the tears form.

I bend over slightly as if I’d been punched in the gut. She did it. My sister pushed forward and she did it. I circle, searching for my mom, when I spot the punching bag. Why did I stop fighting? Why did I walk away from the one thing that brought me joy?

My uncle comes to mind as do names like Matt and Conner and Kaden and Jax, but then it all gets lost in a tangled web because in the end, what did any of them have to do with me and my ability to fight?

“I don’t know,” I mumble to myself.

“Don’t know what?” my mother asks as she joins us by the bale. My mother is smiling. Really smiling. Enjoying Maggie’s brief taste of victory.

“I stopped fighting,” I whisper and my mother’s smile falters as she tilts her head to understand my words.