Embrace the suck

“Where we going, Mama?” Little Mac asked as they drove out of town.

“We havin’ us an adventure, sugar.”

“An adventure? We going to a jungle or somethin’?”

“No, baby.”

After a long pause, Little Mac asked, “We runnin’ away ’cause Daddy done been sprung from jail?”

Annie Mae looked in the rearview, surprised. “What you say?”

Little Mac stared back with eyes just like his daddy's. “Gator come up to me at recess when I was playing with Red and Tommy. He asked was I sayin’ my prayers ‘cause sho’ ‘nuf I'd need'em since Big Mac had been sprung from prison and no doubt he was comin’ home to beat us some more or worse…”

“Baby, Gator don't know nothin’ ‘bout nothin’. We havin’ ourselves an adventure.”

“Where we goin’, Mama?”

“Well, I done filled the tank in this here car, and we gonna drive toward the settin’ sun till it's almost empty and if it's a nice looking town, well, I'll find me a job and we'll settle down, just you and me. Get us a nice little house…you'll see.”

“I ever gonna see Red and Tommy again? They's my best friends in the whole world.”

Annie Mae's eyes filled and she blinked hard at the road. “Maybe, sugar. Some day.”