Writing Playground:

Laura’s eyes looked across the prairie, wide, and vast, much like her beloved Pacific Ocean in its seeming to be endless. She had come to trust the ocean, though. She couldn’t adequately describe what she was feeling for this prairie after what had happened

She had loved it when she arrived two days ago. It was serene and comforting in its yellows and greens. She had watched the sunset last night with such profound joy yet with that sun went her last shreds of optimism. The prairie had swallowed any evidence of progress in its grass waving taunts.

The Missouri River mocked her now, too. Damn the River. Damn all rivers. Damn grasses, damn oceans, damn interstate highways. Damn plans made and broken and lost.

She opened the door to the café and listened as her heels clackety clacked across the faded formica floor. She could trust time. She could trust a cup of coffee. She could trust people would leave her alone as she took solace, for just a few moments she could be apart from the wide eyes of her daughter, looking to her with that, “I know Mom can solve everything” expression Laura knew was about to evaporate.

The time had come for her motherhood status to finally fail and her sweet Lindsey would become the latest victim of circumstance.

She sat, as if comatose, drinking coffee and sighing, unaware of anything in the room except her desire for silence. Her breath soon relaxed into a steady, melodic rhythm which seemed to encourage her to say something. Anything.

Her words were veiled with blown engine exhaust fumes. Tumbling from her mouth were some form of language but so tired, with a slight hint of motor oil laced with sweaty hopelessness she didn’t make much sense. “Why don’t more people respond like they should?” Laura mumbled to herself.

“Whaaaaaa?” came another voice, attached to a pair of chicken-like-legs and more than likely, hair that hadn’t moved since 1986. “You need more coffee, sweetie?”

Laura didn’t want to look up. She was terrified she might look into the eyes of her own destiny. Worn out waitress in the middle of nowhere pouring coffee on the graveyard shift to fading truckers and exhausted travelers praying for an angel of mercy.

“No, thanks – I’ve had enough…” Laura answered. She finally looked up, for just a moment, “Just the check.”

She had no idea how she was getting out of this mess, she just knew she must get out of it. Her chipped nails tapped on the formica tabletop before in her restlessness she fished her journal from her backpack to write while the waitress took an order for chicken fried steak from a guy wearing a fishing cap at the counter.

“11:25 pm, June 16. Chamberlain, SD.

“I wish I could say I feel blessed here. I’m trying, oh, how I am trying. I’m convinced my story is going to look like a Lifetime Movie with a twist. The heroine doesn’t rise triumphant, there’s no appealing, everyday Joe-Widower Young Cop or Fireman waiting to sweep her off her feet and Lindsey is a sometimes sullen sixteen-year-old with an Ipod permanently attached to her ears rather than an appealing six-year-old with a lisp and pigtails. Nope, my story is even too pitiful for Lifetime.”

Chicken-Like-Legs-Stuck-in-1986-hair-waitress returned, looking much softer around her eyes than Laura had given her credit for in the first place.

“You staying at the motel?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Laura admitted, slightly embarrassed.

“Where you on your way to, anyway?”

Laura sighed, embarrassed even more than before. “Right now, I don’t know. My daughter and I were headed to Massachusetts but our car…”

“Had a different plan?” the waitress asked, finishing Laura’s sentence for her.

Laura couldn’t help but laugh, her first laugh of the last two days. “Do I look as pitiful as I feel?”

“M’name’s Rhoda,” the waitress said, reaching out her hand, an offering. Laura took it, her enthusiasm increasing as her tiredness fell from her skin. “I wouldn’t say you looked pitiful, I would say you look…. Like you need a good night’s sleep and a friend to cook you breakfast in the morning.”

Laura doubted the motel was the most likely spot for either.

The bells over the door jangled, a throw back even further than Rhoda’s big hair style. It was Lindsay, looking much younger than her sixteen years. “Mom? You coming back to the room?”

Rhoda and Laura turned together to face the chestnut haired teen. “She’s yours?” Rhoda asked.

Laura nodded and was surprised to feel a blush of pride well up within her.

“Mom?”

“Yes, honey, I was just talking to Rhoda….” She took the check from the table and turned to her new, thirty-second friend with the legs-like-a-chicken and the hair, which needed an update as much as Laura needed that good night’s sleep and a friend to cook her breakfast.

Rhoda reached out her hand to the teen whose nose and eyebrows were now scrunched into a question mark. “Hi there, Sweetie. I was just inviting your Mom to breakfast, on the house, tomorrow morning.” Lindsey’s question mark eyebrows turned into a frown.

“Oh, we couldn’t…” Laura started.

“Oh, yes. You can.” Rhoda interrupted, a sureness in her voice which hadn’t been heard yet.

“I’m thinking you don’t have many folks around here you could call friend. Well, now you have me and I am offering and around here, if a friend offers you say yes, as simple as that.”

Lindsey and Laura looked at each other. Lindsey paused in the center of their eye contact, her face blank now, and shrugged. The mother in Laura saw her daughter’s muscles relax upon hearing the word “friend” which had somehow become a prayer in the hushed quiet of midnight in the South Dakota roadside coffee shop. Obedience became the only answer.

Laura put her arm around Lindsay’s shoulder. “Yes, Rhoda. Breakfast, tomorrow.” Sometimes plans, modified, weren't so bad after all. Breakfast with a friend was better than a Sausage McMuffin or nothing.

Mother and daughter turned to leave, together, a sudden weight lifted.

Maybe these moments would become Lifetime Movie material after all.