Jump Cut by Ted Staunton

me by my toes when I get back, it’s still been better than staying home.” She looks away and tugs at Mister Bones’s leash. “Anyway, we should get back.” She pulls down her shades. Then she pulls them up again and looks straight at me. “But promise me something? Promise you’ll swear she forced me to come.”
    â€œUh, sure. You got it.”
    â€œThanks, Spencer.”
    We turn back for the motel.

TWENTY-TWO
    The next day we drive. And drive. And drive. And drive. We head north from the Sault. Al drives, AmberLea drives, I drive. GL rides shotgun. We pass tiny places—some I can’t even pronounce—and they’re getting farther apart. We stop a couple of times for food and gas and to let Mister Bones and us do our thing. Except for trucks, there’s not much traffic. I start to see what GL meant about life being a movie without jump cuts—especially a road movie.
    GL watches the landscape for a while as it gets rockier and scrubbier. She nibbles some of her crackers. She doesn’t say much. Then I see her reach in her pocket and turn off her hearing aid; after that she makes like Mister Bones and pretty much dozes.
    AmberLea listens to her iPod. Al tries to get a signal on his phone every so often, then swears in a halfhearted way and wrestles with a map. I can’t get a signal on my phone either, so I take out my camera and try a few shots when it’s not my turn to drive. I get a good one of AmberLea at the wheel, with her hair whipping out behind her, and one of tiny old GL asleep, all hat and scarf, in the front seat. Al says, “Don’t even think about it,” when I turn the camera toward him, so instead I get a cool rolling-down-the-highway shot through the windshield. Then I turn around and get on my knees for a shot over the back of the car, of the road unwinding behind us. If this were a movie, I think to myself as I try to hold the camera steady, what I’d see right now is a black dot on the road back there, getting bigger until it morphs into the black SUV, gaining on us, with the motorcycles, and the helicopter would swoosh overhead. Or there’d be a jump cut to wherever we’re going so we could skip all this.
    But there isn’t. No black SUVS or killer bikers either. All we get buzzed by are blackflies (one whacks into my head as I’m kneeling there) and rain, after the Sault. We stop to put the top up and everything seems dark and dreary and even more boring.
    At White River, we stop for an early dinner. We stagger into a restaurant you can tell smells permanently of French fries. A lot of rigs are parked outside. I’m guessing the rest of the customers are truckers. The map and GPS both tell us we’ve got about an hour to go to Marathon, where GL says we’re going to stop. She’s had enough for today.
    â€œThank god,” says Al as we sink into a booth. I nod. I never thought sitting could make me so tired.
    AmberLea brings GL back from the restroom and folds her in beside me. You can practically hear GL’s hinges creak. She was so stiff when we got out of the car that I wondered if we’d have to unbend her ourselves. She looks worn-out, even after her naps. Some of her face powder has come off and her lipstick is blurry and staining her teeth. When the waitress shows up with coffee, she has a cup right off.
    â€œGramma,” AmberLea warns, “you never drink coffee.”
    â€œIt’s a special occasion.” She hunches over the cup. “I need this like hell needs a fire hose. I used to live on this stuff.”
    By the time the waitress takes our orders, GL’s perked up some. “Between the caffeine and the bathroom I’ll be up all night,” she says, panting a little, “but right now it’s worth it. Now,” she goes on, leaning across the table, both hands around her cup, as if she’s some moose trapper who’s lived up here forever,