"Crossroads" this months theme for our writing group

Jackie's contribution: 

The blast could be heard for miles around at what was called Dipster Junction located in Americas ' Mid West.    The crossroads so named when two main roads both sloped downwards preventing drivers from seeing each other until the very last minute.  

Located in the middle of the prairie there were no stop signs or traffic lights.       
Hearing the terrible explosion farmers, families and villagers stopped cooking New Years Eve dinner -   hosts pouring out champagne to guests hesitated and then celebrations forgotten as people rushed to  windows of their houses and those who had gone to bed early on that evening of the 31st December, not wanting to celebrate the new year, were roused by a horrendous crash at the crossroads.       
Everyone from miles around stopped what they were doing - looked out of their windows, checked their yards and listened and knew instinctively this was serious.  The villagers prepared for the worst.    
Accidents had happened before but as smoke rose from the scene into tornado like spirals and black fumes billowed into the countryside and orange flames reached up to the sky creating massive Guy Fawkes night displays - they feared grim news.
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      Amy crushed  her cigarette on the pavement before catching the elevator to her apartment.    Boyfriend Chris was waiting up for her - arriving late from her weekly yoga class she was happy to get home and pictured her evening with her lover imagining herself relaxing in bubble bath with her last cigarette of the day.    She kissed Chris hello and was surprised at his reaction.   Oh yuk - he exclaimed, I’m so fed up with kissing an ashtray  - this smoking habit of yours is going to ruin our relationship you’ll have to choose between me or your cigarettes.  You probably don’t realise it but your clothes smell of smoke and  mine too.     You should make this your new years resolution Amy - then our relationship can progress .     So vowed to give up she fixed the date of 1st of January  in her mind as this was when she had planned to visit her long lost friend Julie - they were going to spend the evening of the 31st together reminiscing over a bottle of champagne and cheering in the new year.    Her friends home was situated in a remote part of the State,  was the home she had known in her childhood, playmates as children they hadn’t seen each other for  4/5 years.   Chris was to lend her his car - a Golf that had seen better days  but she would drive carefully leaving early to be on time.     He was off to DJ in a club so she was free for the weekend.     Putting all of this to the back of her mind she got on with her holiday preparations.

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 Several hundred miles away Jim checked his car and found a black oily patch underneath the bonnet of his old red Masarati.        OMG he had forgotten the appointment at the garage and he’d spent his salary last Friday night on the blonde bombshell who had winked at him in the bar last week.    So he’d have to wait before he could repair this leak.    Jim was crazy about cars - this one was an old model and had 250,000 kilometres on its clock but he loved the way it revved up and especially the looks he got from the pretty girls as he drove down Main street on a Saturday afternoon.  
He drove home conscious that gas was oozing out from under the petrol tank - and resolved to get it fixed by the 1st of January the day after he was due to drive over to his grandfathers house as he had promised him a check of $400 , a belated birthday present.    It was going to be worth driving 200 kms to pick it up.  Then he’d have enough money to pay for the repairs.   
For the moment though he’d just have to put up with the drip of  petrol.
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On that fated evening of the 31st   December Amy and Jim arrived at the crossroads at exactly the same time - Amy seeing the clock in her car marked 11:58 pm lit one last cigarette, inhaled slowly but deeply - just one more she thought as in 1 minute I shall be finished with smoking for the rest of my life.     She drew the smoke into her lungs,  inhaling deeply, and enjoyed that relaxed feeling she got when the nicotine hit the spot.   
She swallowed the smoke and threw her still lit cigarette out of the car window and it fell onto the road,  a red glow in the dark night….
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Jim’s car had been leaking badly on the way to his grandfathers house.    He sped towards the crossroads -  he couldn’t see the other car coming from the opposite direction as there seemed to be a dip in the road -  he was late anyway the roads were as straight as an arrow and after all there would be no one out at this time of the night on New Years Eve so he didn’t slow down after all - everyone was partying eating drinking champagne - he hurried towards the crossroads and swerved seeing the oncoming light of Amy’s Golf.   Too late he glimpsed a tiny red glow in the middle of the road and too late wished he had attended to that leak…

The gasoline dripping onto the black asphalt caught Amy’s unfinished cigarette  when they collided,  the two cars exploding and destroying the lives of young people not related in any way except by their inadvertence to avoid details and procrastinate . 

Paula's contribution

Vivian was 53 when she stood behind her husband as he sat at his desk in their den one Sunday afternoon and said, “I can’t live like this anymore.”

Her husband swiveled his chair around slowly until he was facing her. “Like what?” he asked.

She stared at him in wonder, this man she had married 30 years ago, when life was full of promise and possibilities. “Let me ask you something,” she said softly. “Are you happy?” He looked away, then down at his desk, then, finally, at her. “I’m content,” he said. “Content,” she repeated. “Content. Is that enough for you?”

“Yes,” he said.

Two weeks later, Vivian moved into a furnished attic apartment, taking her cat and her clothes and her books.

As she settled into this new space, all hers and hers alone, she told herself sternly that this was a good thing. She needed vowed to spend time alone – at least a year -- to find out who she was, to turn up the stereo loudly when she got home from work, to luxuriate in her own company and that of family and good friends, to make decisions about her life without having to consider or consult others.

She filled the days with her consuming work as an art curator at a local museum, and the nights with a new kind of solitude, of her own choosing, a loneliness that she tried to stave off by reading, and wondering, and dreaming of what might have been and what might come next. At her age, she had no illusions of a grand love affair, of excitement and passion and adventure. But she knew she would no longer settle, for a life of polite indifference, for a marriage of benign neglect.

Here’s what Vivian did know: She had to get away. She needed time, and space, away from work, away from this city, away from this life. She would go to Paris, she thought, or New York, a big city where she could lose herself among the bustle of people who didn’t know or care about her or her problems. Or she would go to an island in the Caribbean, where she could lose herself for days under an umbrella in the sand, watching the ever-changing ocean waves in the soft, salty air.

She confided in an old friend, a writer she had known for ages, a man who seemed to always be there at the edges of her life, always just a phone call away, always a ready lunch or cocktail hour companion, someone with whom she had laughed over the silliest things until their stomachs hurt, and with whom she had cried over life’s cruelties until their eyes were red and stinging. She told him she was feeling bruised, and bewildered, and adrift.

“Look,” he said to her. “This might sound fantastic, but I think it could be exactly what you need.” He was leaving in a few days for a month in Australia, he told her, doing press interviews for his latest book. “When all that stuff is over,” he said, “I’m meeting some dear friends, and we’re going into the Outback for a few weeks of camping and hiking and swimming. You’d like them, and I know they will love you.”

Australia. A land 153 hours away by plane. A land so vast and wide that you could lose yourself in it – and maybe, find yourself, again. A land where even the stars across the night sky were different from the ones she was used to.

She was afraid to think too hard or too long about his offer and all that it might mean. Here was a man she cared about, and who cared about her, offering her a chance to go to the other side of the world, with him, to a place far, far from her troubles. And Yet, there waswhat about the promise she had made to herself to take a year to just … be?. Going off to Australia, with even the smallest hope of romance, seemed to be an explicit break with that promise, a risk of a different kind.

But here’sHere’s what Vivian did know: She laughed when she was with this man. She felt like her best self when she was with him. When she was with him, she felt safe.

She scheduled vacation time at work. She arranged for a cat sitter. She arrived at the airport, with one bag and three books. As she sat at the gate, fighting off all the questions in her head, her flight was called for boarding.

Here’s what Here’s what Vivian could could not possibly know: T: That when she finally arrived in Perth, the writer would be there at the gate, waiting for her, heart in his throat and tears in his eyes as he watched her walk toward him.

What she did know is that she had made a decision, to put aside her reservations and her reasons, to embrace her hope, and carry it across the ocean. She couldn’t know this, but she could hope.

She stood, shouldered her bag, took a deep breath, and walked onto the plane.

Annemarie's story

Crossroads. (Annemarie)

This was her first day back working after a seven year break.  Jo looked at her son as he gulped down some cereals. At fourteen, dark-haired Alex was already taller and leaner than his father and he towered over his mother.  She turned her gaze on six year old Martha , slowly munching on her cornflakes, her corn coloured hair unbrushed and tumbling round her face, she was short and petite in complete  contrast to her big brother.  

Jo had no regrets about having been an at-home mum; Alex and Martha were two happy, well-adjusted children and as a family they enjoyed each other’s company, camping at the weekends or trekking in blustering winds on some coastal path.
All the same  she was looking forward to starting work at the high school, filling in for an absentee art teacher. Who knew where it might lead.
Breakfast finished Alex took himself off to school while Jo hastily loaded the dishwasher and then took Martha to school and waited with her until her school bell went, then she hurried across town to prepare for her first art lesson in seven years.

Taking a deep breath she followed a rowdy group of fourteen-year old boys and girls into the classroom. One boy in particular, caught her attention but why she couldn’t say but somewhere she felt a little niggle. A few days later he was sent to her for a minor misdemeanour and again there was a disconcerting niggle, a 'deja vu', when reprimanding the same  mop-headed lad. Somehow his mannerisms seemed familiar - just the way he picked his school bag up, the way he walked in a rather determined manner, even his expression. Then, as though struck in the stomach she realised it was Peter, her husband he reminded her of - not just his mannerisms but physically as well - short and muscular, unruly fair hair, the slight downturn of his mouth when he smiled.

She dismissed immediately the briefest of fleeting suspicions. She and Peter had always had a strong and loving marriage. It must just be a coincidence. She could not even consider the possibility; after all the boy was the same age as Alex and surely Peter couldn't have been conducting a secret affair when she was pregnant. They had both been so content, excited, in fact deliriously happy about their first baby. 

 Two weeks later the same boy, Josh Baines, skidded on paint on the art room floor and suffered a bad cut above his eye. Jo cleaned it up as best as possible, blood  staining her cardigan in the process.  He would really have to go home so after a quick phone call to his mother she drove the boy there.

The door was opened by a worried Mrs Baines to an even more startled Jo. She could barely  take her eyes off the woman as they led Josh into the sitting room.  Turning hurriedly to leave Jo caught sight of a family photo - a tall, dark-haired father, tall elegant mother and in front of the parents short muscular Josh next to his slender younger brother. The brief thought that he might be adopted was quickly followed by an intensely more frightening realisation. She turned, her hand poised on the door knob.

'Have you always lived in this area?” she asked Mrs Baines.
“Oh no. We only recently returned from overseas. “
Jo visibly relaxed and was about to open the door when Mrs Baines added,
“However, when we were first married my husband's firm was based here. In fact Josh was born here - you could say my son's come home.”
“So was my son. In Westfield Hospital.” said Jo.
“What à coïncidence! That's where Josh was born!”exclaimed Mrs Baines.
With a tremor in her voice Jo stuttered 'goodbye' sped home somewhat erratically, her mind in turmoil, took off the blood-stained sweater, put it carefully in a plastic bag, put on a clean sweater and returned to school, her brain churning with dreadful possibilities. Was Josh their son? And Alex - was he really Alex Baines? Josh who looked so like her husband and Alex the spitting image of Mrs Baines. You heard of hospital mix-ups. She had to know if Josh was her birth son but she said nothing to anybody, not even to Peter.

Friday she called in sick to school.  She raced around the house in a blind panic, hardly knowing what she was doing and with samples of hair carefully bagged and labelled from Peter, herself and Alex and the stained sweater in the plastic bag, she set off first to see Mrs Baines - after all she would be as anxious to know the truth and she would need her cooperation for hair samples and then she would drive to the Alpha laboratories in London.  She was not really sure what she needed or quite how to go about getting a DNA test.

Desperately trying to think what she would say to Mrs Baines she turned into Whiteleafe Road.  There was a long queue at the crossroads; a van broken down and behind it a stream of cars and an inordinate wait. Hands resting on the steering wheel, her mind in a turmoil, she considered the situation; what would happen to both families should a DNA test prove a hospital mix-up? How would effect the other members of the family? Now nobody else had the faintest inkling and she could, after all, be completely wrong. Ten minutes later she, her hands sweaty, her heart pounding she still had no idea how to approach Josh's mother.

A car horn hooting shattered  her thoughts. Quickly she started the engine, indicated to turn right, direction of the Baines' home, but on reaching the crossroads she continued straight on, oblivious of the shaking fists and horns from other motorists. As tears fell down her cheeks she headed home. Tomorrow she would hand in her notice and find another job this side of town. Now she was going home to her family.