"Ready to hit the road?"
Dad's lumberjack voice boomed across the driveway as he surveyed the rest of us: Mom, my sister, and me. We stood next to the car, stuffed full of my kid sister Ashley's belongings. It was the weekend before Labor Day, and the family was set to embark on the long drive to take Ashley to college, where she would begin her freshman year.
We answered Dad's question by getting into the car. Dad, always in charge, took the driver's seat. Ashley took the front passenger seat, since, as Dad decreed, she was the passenger of honor, on her way to start college. The backseat behind Dad was stuffed full of Ashley's belongings, so Mom slid into the backseat from the passenger side and scooted over leftward until her slim, petite frame occupied whatever little remained of a middle space on the backseat. I took the rear passenger space next to Mom, directly behind my sister.
When the seat belts were buckled and the car doors were locked Dad started the ignition and loudly called, "We're off!"
Dad pulled the car out of the driveway, and we hit the road.
"You OK back there, Eliza?" Dad called out, loudly, to Mom. "You're kind of smooshed up against the stuff in the back seat."
"I'm fine, Brad," Mom said, in her soft-spoken voice.
Mom and Dad were stark contrasts. Dad did and said everything dramatically. He was a loud-spoken guy with a big personality. He made friends everywhere he went. He talked constantly, words flowing out of him like a river. Mom was the opposite. She let Dad do most of the talking. When she spoke, she spoke only after choosing her words carefully, and she used the fewest words necessary to make her point. She always spoke softly, in a high-pitched, almost girlish voice, although she never acted girlishly. Mom embodied the saying, "Still waters run deep." It was difficult to penetrate her calm, quiet depths, but when you looked into her eyes you did not doubt that beneath the surface swam a complex of thoughts and feelings she preferred to keep to herself for reasons of her own.
Ashley, two years younger than I, was like Dad. She talked all the time, like Dad, and she and Dad seemed to bond with all their talking. Although I was the older child, and I was his son, I sometimes felt like Dad had a closer bond with Ashley than with me. I was more like Mom -- a little shy, a little soft-spoken, and likely to speak only when I'd had a chance to think about what I wanted to say.
Right off, Dad talked to Ashley about how great it would be to start college. With his usual expert skill, he navigated the car from the house to the freeway, and off we went, to Ashley's new school, hundreds of miles of road lying before us.
It was soon obvious that Mom was not comfortable.
Her hip pressed tightly against mine, and when I looked left, I could see why. The back seat on the driver's side was stuffed with bags and boxes, almost to the car ceiling. Something -- I couldn't tell what -- poked into Mom's side from inside a big duffel bag. There wasn't adequate room for a full adult, even for a person as petite as Mom, in the middle seat.
I tried to make things easier for her by pushing as hard as I could to the right and giving her as much room as I could. But it was no use. I could tell that despite all my best efforts, Mom was uncomfortable. She kept squirming, and I could swear that at one time I heard her say "ouch" in her soft voice.
It was a sultry September morning, summer drawing to its close, and Dad had a habit of not wanting to use the car's air conditioning to excess. So, it was warm in the car, and it felt warmer with Mom's body pressed against mine on the tight car seat. Dad and Ashley chatted away, oblivious to Mom and me. I didn't know what they talked about after a while. I didn't listen, and I didn't care. I tried paying attention to my phone, surfing the Internet, looking for sports news. But it wasn't easy to focus with the firm pressure of Mom's side against mine.
After a while, I broke the silence.
"Are you OK, Mom?" I asked.
"I'm OK," she replied.
"You don't look or sound OK," I said. "It looks like you don't have enough room there."
"Something's poking against me in this bag," she said. "I'm not sure what it is. I'm trying to keep my side away from it, but it's hard. There's so little space."
"Do you want to trade places?" I asked.
"No, that's OK," she said. "But thanks for asking. You'd fit worse on this middle seat than I do."
Dad's loud voice suddenly interrupted.
"Everything OK back there, Eliza?"
"We're fine, Brad," Mom said, her voice barely audible.
We drove for perhaps another 30 miles, Mom grunting once and a while in obvious discomfort.
"Eliza," Dad called out. "Can you duck your head to the side? I thought I saw a highway patrol car and I want to check if that's what we passed."
"Sure," she said. She unbuckled her seatbelt and shifted her body toward mine and she inclined her head to an angle, in front of my face, and I caught the pleasant, fresh, floral scent of her hair in my nose.
On impulse, I took Mom's waist in my hands and with almost no effort lifted her until she sat on my knees. She turned back to me.
"You didn't have to do that."
"It's fine, Mom. You don't weigh anything."
"You're a sweet liar," she said, smiling.
"Eliza!" Dad called, louder than necessary.
"Yes, Brad," Mom replied, as softly as ever.
"That bag right behind me is blocking my view to the back window. Can you move it?"
"I'll do it," I said. I reached over, to the left, and pulled the bag, which was enormous and heavy, until it filled the space where Mom had sat moments earlier. I wore shorts, and as I shifted, I felt the weight of Mom's bottom on my thighs and knees. It wasn't much weight, because Mom had a petite, trim figure, but I felt keenly aware of it. It wasn't a bad feeling, but it was weird.
We had a long, long car ride ahead of us, and Dad and Ashley were busy gabbing about something or other, and Mom was quiet, as usual, so I knew it was up to me to keep myself from dying of boredom. I looked at my phone, of course. I figured I'd go online and amuse myself with updates about football.
My phone's battery, however, was getting low. I had to recharge it. I'd brought a charging cord and leaned to the left to plug it into the console between the front seats. To steady myself, I had to put a hand on Mom's right hip.
That's when I felt it, under the whisper-thin fabric of her dress -- a tiny strap, barely more than a string, which was part of her panties, along the side of her hip, connecting the front and the back. It had to have been no more than an eighth-inch wide. Less, even. I can't begin to describe or explain how it hit me. It was so... skimpy. I'd just felt my mom's panties, under her dress, and what I had felt was tiny. The touch fired my imagination, and I wondered what her underwear looked like. Was it a thong? I didn't dare use my fingers to trace the stringy side backward to find out. What color was it? It was difficult for me to imagine my mom wearing something daring or sexy. She was so... mom-like: quiet and serious and demure. I couldn't square my image of her with the way that panty string felt under my finger.
I stewed in these strange thoughts while my phone charged.
I stared at my phone, trying to concentrate on the websites I scrolled through, but I couldn't focus. I was aware, instead, against all my wishes and efforts, of Mom's pert, shapely bottom against my thighs.
