Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace by Andra Watkins Page A

assumptions about the unknown almost always heralded disaster.

HOLIDAY ROAD
    Lindsey Buckingham
    “Why am I crying?” The barren highway didn’t answer.
    It was the beginning of my second week. Fifteen miles past Jackson, the world was impenetrable forest with a strip of highway through its heart.
    I wove past milepost 121. A Monday. Every step drilled into my toes. Tortured ankles and spent legs threatened to stop moving.
    A familiar horn blasted behind me.
    “Dad. Think about him, and he will appear.”
    He pulled onto the grass and motioned me over. His belly knocked the steering wheel. “I’m driving up to Vaiden. See that woman I grew up with. Eighty-nine years old, she is.”
    Needles thrummed along my left eye and pin cushioned an eyebrow. A migraine. I fought to focus on Dad.
    “Everybody called me Hot Shot back then. ‘That you, Hot Shot?’ First thing she said when she picked up the phone.”
    I pretended understanding while my mind howled, “I will not give into this headache. I will not.”
    Wind lashed me into Dad’s door. He leaned through the window. “I hope you didn’t dent this Mercury. Linda’ll kill you if you mess up her car.”
    “Dad—”
    “Supposed to be gusts of up to thirty miles an hour today, Andra. Coming from the north.”
    I tugged the stays of my hood taut. Fiery points of light cracked in the corner of one eye. “Damn,” I whispered.
    Dad put the car in gear. “I got to get going. See that woman. She called me Hot Shot, and—”
    I hurled myself into the car and rained hormonal, time-of-the-month fury on him. “Why is it so freaking important to see someone you haven’t laid eyes on since you were a kid?” I rubbed my left temple and heard my voice crack. “I know what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna drive over there, and get to reliving the good old days—”
    “She called me Hot Shot. Did I tell you that?”
    “Yes, Dad. Several times. And you’re gonna get lost in your stories. And I’ll be waiting by the side of the godforsaken road for hours.” I blasted his face with morning breath. “Don’t. You. Forget. I’ll feel like those poor people, waiting for that lost Malaysian plane. Do you hear me? Don’t you dare forget to pick me up.”
    “I won’t.” Dad closed the window, my signal to start my five hour walk through a wind tunnel.
    With a migraine.
    Physical pain dredged the well of painful memories.
    “Toby Denham, your mother’s here!” Second grade. Hot concrete dug into my tender legs when I scooted closer to the front of car line. Every time another car shot around the side of the building, I held my breath. Was that Mommy? Or Daddy? I took in the little girl next to me. Her wilted curls. Our teacher loomed over us, hands on hips. “What’re we gonna do with you two?”
    We were the only remaining kids.
    The teacher glanced at her watch. “Well, I’ve got a pile of papers to grade before I head home. I’ll give your parents a couple more minutes, but if they don’t show, I’m gonna have to put you in daycare.”
    “No!” I squeaked, prostrate beneath her skirt’s hem. “Please, please don’t put me in daycare. I can clean your chalkboards, or dust your erasers, or—”
    “Andra, that’s silly.” Her disdain knifed through me. “If you go to daycare, you can just play.”
    A car hurled into the parking lot, and the other little girl flashed a thumbs up. “Yessssss. That’s my mom.” She climbed into the front seat and smirked at me, but I focused on the ground. I wouldn’t let her see angry tears. By the time my mother raced around the corner, I was in daycare, my mind a mishmash of insecure chanting.
    How could my parents forget me?
    When I could never, ever forget them?
    Howling wind slapped my words into chafed cheeks. “You’d better not forget me, Hot Shot.”
    Near milepost 125, bullets of rain shot through me, a sideways downpour that gained velocity with every gust. Niagara Falls streamed into my eyes. “Not