My husband, finally irritated with me, tells me to leave him alone while he finishes changing the tire. I am happy to do so. Leaving the smell of hot rubber behind is a blessing. He’s doing it wrong anyway, so this is going to take a while.
We took a wrong turn off a New Mexican highway and went on for five miles before realizing our mistake. When my husband turned around, he caught a nail or something during the U-turn and the whole thing blew out. It’s not quite midday yet, but the sun is doing its part to keep us sunburned and sweaty and grouchy.
I step away from the SUV and walk along the empty blacktop. Dirt covers the beat-up asphalt and weeds have tried to grow cracks, but the lack of rain and the unrelenting sun have turned them into brittle bits of nothing. Whatever paint had marked the lanes is long gone.
Luckily, we have a full tire instead of a donut, so as long as my husband can figure out that lug nuts turn lefty loosey, righty tighty, he should be able to stumble through without my help. Behind me, a couple of those nuts hit the asphalt with a rattling sound. He curses.
I take a deep breath of the dry air, wishing I had some ice to chew on. The road feels like it’s burning through my sandals, so I step away, off the blacktop. We’re solidly in the middle of the desert. It’s not sandy, it’s all scrub brush and crispy sage. Plenty of places for rattlesnakes to hide, so I keep an eye toward the ground. And that’s how I find the backpack.
It’s a green Jansport, identical to one I had in high school. Forest green, with a leather-ish bottom. I chose it back then so that I didn’t stand out. Green is a fairly neutral color, and there are no patterns to make you stand out. It also seemed sturdy to me, able to hold the textbooks. Kids nowadays don’t have textbooks, not really. (Everything is by computer in my nephew’s high school.) My pack lasted about a week before the left shoulder strap busted. Another month, and the seams holding the leather-ish bottom frayed and there was a hole. My mother asked me what I was doing with the thing—hauling bricks?
The backpack lying under the tumbleweed here is intact, though it looks almost brown because there is so much dust and dirt over it, practically ground into the fibers. The zipper is doing that thing where the teeth don’t quite meet up in places, but the whole thing is zipped. Some kind of material bulges out of those spaces. This pack isn’t carrying school books.
I look around. There are no buildings, no homes, and there haven’t been for miles. This isn’t a bus stop, clearly. I see my husband rolling the spare tire out of the back. It’s springy, practically bouncing. I hope he doesn’t bounce it on a nail. Beyond him is more of the same landscape—nothing.
“Hello?” I shout, just to see.
The single word doesn’t echo—there’s nothing to bounce off of out here. I imagine my question stretching out and out, with the lizards and tiny cacti ignoring me.
“What are you doing?” my husband calls, sounding genuinely confused and farther away than he should.
“Nothing!”
I bend down and pull the bag out from beneath the prickly branches of the tumbleweed. Tiny nicks appear along the back of my hand, but I ignore them. The weight of the backpack is solid. I’m surprised the straps haven’t given way. On closer inspection, the leather at the bottom is frayed. Give it one more scrape against the ground and everything inside is going to fall out.
Looking around again, feeling like a thief or a mom who is about to read her teenager’s diary, I unzip the bag. The zipper snags but breaks through the teeth that are barely hanging on. There will be no re-zipping.
A gray t-shirt falls out, followed by a casual navy blue button-down. Both items look as if they have been heavily worn, the material so thin I can practically see through it. After that comes a hairbrush with dark hair clinging to the bristles. After that, a couple pairs of panties, one light blue and another pastel pink, both now almost as gray as the t-shirt. A woman’s bag. But it’s too heavy to be just these clothes.
I pull more items out. Another set of clothes all rolled together, all much smaller. I swallow hard. Deep green corduroys with a flower stitched over the knee—an obvious patch. Two more tiny panties, both with faint urine stains—someone had tried to wash them out without the benefit of a washing machine. A pair of socks with ripped ruffles.
I sit on the ground, now digging through, looking for some kind of identification. I don’t know what I would do with an ID if I found it, but I feel like maybe it would be important. The only other items in here are water bottles. A few are full. Others have only dregs. They have already been opened and reused. Smears of grit line the exterior. Why take your identification and leave the water?
I search the surrounding area again. The only thing is the road. In my mind’s eye, I see a mother, carrying this shitty backpack and hoping it holds together. She holds the hand of a young child, just slightly older than a toddler. Maybe the kid has already walked so far that she doesn’t complain anymore. They’re just putting one foot in front of the other.
Why put the backpack down? Is the destination so close?
I see nothing but the horizon and hundreds of miles to go before reaching home.
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