Laughter Lane

Another short story. Enjoy!

                It was in the midst of the hottest summer I can remember, out in the foothills of Kentucky among the trees and the rocks, when the car came to a slow halt. My papa slammed a hand against the steering wheel and said a phrase that hardly ever meant something good;

                “Well, that’s that.”

                We were out of gas on a little back road, far from any gas station, with a car full of suitcases and camping supplies, halfway to our destination. I remember my ma, twenty-some minutes earlier, saying we should fill up before we got too far out into the hills. But papa just chuckled and said we’d make it just fine. Well, I guess we now know who was right.

                “I’ll have to walk back down to the corner where we saw that house an’ see if they’ll give me a hand,” Papa ran a large, calloused hand through his already tousled hair and glanced into the rear-view mirror—looking at me first, and then at little baby Jill.

                Ma nodded, turning to look at me where I sat all wide-eyed and curious. It was to be my first camping trip out in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, and so far it had been the strangest trip I’d experienced in all of my eight years on this earth.

                “Well, I’ll be back as quick as I can,” Papa opened the door and glanced at all of us, a line running down the center of his forehead that ma said always meant he was thinking too hard. “Stay in the car.”

                Then he took off on his way back down the road, and we were left to watch the tall trees wave their branches with the wind. All was good and fine until little Jill started crying. Ma held her in her lap and sang a few songs, glancing out the window at the trees, thinking about papa.

                It started getting dark, and ma was obviously worried. Jill finally fell back to sleep, but I was awake and scared too. The wind started howling outside and the sun ducked behind some big, dark clouds and didn’t come back out. Ma crawled back to sit with me and told me stories, but after a bit we both just sat real quiet, watching the wind and hoping for papa to get back soon.

                That’s when we saw something frightening. An animal was coming up the road toward us—a mighty big dog, as dark as the storm clouds overhead. Then we heard some men hollering, and I got real scared, and started crying. Ma held me tight, but didn’t say a thing—I only learned how scared she was later when we laughed about the story.

                Two men came into view, battling against the wind, and I recognized papa. Elated, I sprang from Ma’s arms plastered myself against the window, watching as he approached. Gas can in hand and a smile on his face, he tapped on the window and gave us all big hugs when we opened the door.

                It may have been the scariest moment of my young life, but now our family laughs in its memory. We later learned that the road we broke down on was called Laughter Lane, and the tale of that long-gone summer day has been a favorite ever since.

© Copyright Charity K, 2014