The RearView Mirror
1178 Words
The engine of Lena’s weathered sedan turned over with a reluctant groan, a sound that felt entirely too much like her own internal state. Beside her, Mitchell was already buckled in, his face pressed against the glass. In his lap, he held the T-Rex Silas had "liberated" from the blue bin, its plastic tail poking out from under his small arm like a prehistoric seatmate.
Lena didn't put the car in gear immediately. She looked at the house—really looked at it. Without the furniture to soften the edges, the structure looked skeletal. The front door, once a barrier against the world, now looked like a mouth held open in a silent, hollow gasp.
"Mom? The spaceship is leaving," Mitchell said, pointing at the massive moving truck idling at the curb.
Silas was in the cab, his silhouette dark against the glare of the windshield. He didn't honk or wave; he simply waited. He was the anchor, and she was the ship finally being cast out to sea.
Lena shifted into reverse. The gravel crunched under her tires—a sound she had heard every morning for ten years—but today it sounded like bone breaking. As she backed out, she watched the mailbox pass by. It was tilted slightly to the left, a casualty of a snowplow three winters ago that Jerry had never bothered to fix. She’d spent three years walking past that lean, and now it was someone else’s problem.
She reached the end of the driveway and paused. In the rearview mirror, her life was framed by the rectangular glass. The peeling paint on the porch, the overgrown hydrangeas, the window of the bedroom where she’d cried herself to sleep more times than she had slept.
Then, the truck pulled forward.
Silas’s heavy vehicle eclipsed her view of the house entirely. For a moment, all she could see was the corrugated metal of the trailer—a wall of silver between her and her past.
"Is the house sad, Mom?" Mitchell asked quietly. The bravado of being a 'consultant' had flickered out, replaced by the raw observation of a child who realized his bedroom no longer existed.
"No, Mitch," Lena lied, her hands tightening on the steering wheel until her knuckles matched the white of the clouds. "The house is just empty. It’s waiting for a new story."
She turned the wheel, pointing the car toward the highway. She didn't look back again. She couldn't. If she looked back, she might realize that she hadn't just left a building; she’d left the person she thought she was supposed to be.
Up ahead, the brake lights of the moving truck flared—a steady, glowing red. Follow me, they seemed to say. Lena took a deep breath, tasted the lingering scent of floor wax on her tongue one last time, and hit the gas.The highway stretched out before them, a gray ribbon cutting through the green hills of the countryside. The steady hum of the tires on the asphalt was the only thing filling the silence until Mitchell shifted in his seat, his eyes fixed on the massive silver back of the moving truck ahead of them.
"Mom?"
"Yeah, Mitch?"
"Does Silas have a dinosaur? A real one?"
Lena smiled faintly, her eyes locked on the truck’s brake lights. "I don't think so, honey. I think he just knows a lot about them because he has to move them so often."
"He said he has a spaceship," Mitchell insisted, holding his T-Rex up to the window to show it the passing trees. "And he's really strong. He picked up the coffee table like it was made of LEGOs. Do you think he's a superhero? Like the ones who hide in plain sight?"
Lena’s mind flickered back to the way Silas had leaned against the doorframe, his shadow stretching across the foyer. He hadn't acted like a hero; he had acted like a man who was intimately familiar with the anatomy of a broken life. "I think he’s just a man who’s good at his job, Mitchell."
"I like him," Mitchell decided, his voice dropping to a sleepy mumble. "He didn't make you cry. Most people who come over make you cry."
The comment hit Lena like a physical blow. She didn't have an answer for that, so she just reached over and squeezed Mitchell’s knee.
Two hours later, the scenery shifted from rolling hills to a quiet, tree-lined street in a town that felt decades older than the one they had left. The houses were smaller, tucked behind wide porches and sagging fences.
The truck slowed, signaling a turn into a narrow driveway. Lena followed, her heart doing a nervous dance in her chest. The "new" house was a small, white bungalow with peeling shutters and a wide, friendly oak tree in the front yard. It was a far cry from the suburban sprawl she’d left behind, but it was hers.
As she parked, Silas was already out of the cab. He was directing his crew—two younger men who looked exhausted—with a series of sharp, efficient hand signals.
"Home sweet home," Lena whispered to herself, though it felt more like a question than a statement.
She hopped out of the car, Mitchell trailing behind her. As they watched the men begin to unload the heavy cherry table, a neighbor across the street waved. Lena waved back tentatively, her eyes wandering down the row of houses.
Two doors down, she noticed something familiar. In the driveway of a perfectly maintained craftsman-style house sat a black pickup truck. On the tailgate, in the exact same font as the moving truck, was the company logo. But it was the porch that caught her eye—a small, wooden dinosaur, carved from oak, sat guarding the front door.
Silas walked over to her, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He noticed where she was looking.
"Problem with the neighborhood, Ma'am?" he asked, his voice carrying that same low, resonant hum.
Lena looked from the carved dinosaur to the man standing in front of her. "You live there?"
Silas offered a small, almost shy shrug. "Small town. Management likes to keep the foremen close to the routes. Guess I’m the 'consultant' for this block, too."
Mitchell’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. "You’re our neighbor? Can you help me build the T-Rex paddock tomorrow?"
Silas looked at Lena, waiting for the "maybe" he had warned her about. But Lena looked at the little white house, then back at the man who had handled her brittle grandmother's table with the grace of a saint.
"The paddock is a big job," Lena said, her voice steadier than it had been all day. "He might need a professional."
Silas nodded, a glint of something like respect in his eyes. "I’ll bring my own hammer. It’s better for the 'fragile stuff.'"
- Writer
