Chevrolet

I'd purchased the car used about seven, maybe eight months prior. A good solid car for the commute I'd agreed to every day. I walked onto the lot looking for something simple-an American made large sedan of some sort. Nothing fancy. Just reliable. I'd joked that I wanted to be able to fall asleep at the wheel and be perfectly safe while the car rolled itself into a ditch and waited for me to be done with my nap. This was a month after I'd started the job. Now here I was, on the side of 35W with a mangled front bumper, a windshield that was shattered to bits and a doe, bleeding and broken and still breathing on the side of the road. I'd had some time. Enough to see the fawn run out too. But not enough to brake at the speed I was going. So I'd hit her going 90, maybe 95. But she was still breathing. All I could think to do was to sit down next to her and wait for help.

It was only supposed to be temporary, this job. A two hour commute each way seemed worth it when I considered that the pay was more than enough to support the family and my wife's tuition. Of course, that was supposed to be temporary too. I remember the day the acceptance letter came for a school half the country away that she'd never discussed applying to. She sat me down and begged me to let her have this once in a lifetime opportunity. Two years while she completed her grad program in California, then we could move back to Minnesota or wherever we'd like. I used her as an excuse at the time-the kid. A move would mean she'd start kindergarten while we were there then have to switch schools right away. It was crap, I know. She would have been fine. *I* didn't want to move. Just....didn't want to. So we agreed to live separately. Phone calls every day, letters, email, Skype, all that. It worked for about six months. Then the phone calls stopped. The responses stopped. The letter came shortly after. She'd met someone else. Someone who was "willing to work with her to advance her career". Someone who "didn't tie her down with responsibilities". Someone who "wasn't so wrapped up in himself that he couldn't make sacrifices for the sake of their relationship". A short time it had taken her to gather all this about him.

The doe stirred. Her eyes were wide, the whites almost completely visible. The creature wasn't quite there anymore, but her body wasn't ready to give up. I could see the fawn in the woods-still, silent and laying behind a bush about ten feet to the right. At least, I'm pretty sure that's who it was. It was dark and all I could see when I shone the flashlight behind me were two gigantic eyes hiding, waiting. The fawn was too young. There was no chance of her survival if she didn't stay put long enough to be caught. I put the flashlight down. I didn't want to frighten her away.

It was late, but that's fine. Her grandmother took her during the day while I was gone. I usually didn't pick her up until nine or ten, sometimes later if it was a happy hour night. I needed that time, you know? And its not like she missed me. She was usually asleep when I picked her up anyway. Her grandmother was becoming an issue. Always sharing her opinion about my parenting. And now she'd given her crayons and paper to draw "her feelings" on. Little boxes that looked like people, or houses or trees or the dog. Boxes scattered everywhere-one box with long lines of yellow on top of its head, always to the left of the page. We showed her on a map once where her mother's school was. I hope that's all she's picked up about the situation so far. She'd left one in the backseat of the car last night. Four boxes. One with a tail, one with a roof, one little one and one with curly gray tufts and what looked like glasses. I crumpled it up and threw it in the backseat trash bag with the wrappers and old coffee cups. I can only imagine the off handed remarks from her grandmother that led to that little, limited "family portrait". I'm not the one who left. I'm not the one who abandoned a whole life and my own child for my "career advancement". I'm the one who took a shitty job with a terrible commute to try and support us. And now I'm the one sitting on the side of the highway with a broken car, a dying animal and no way to fix any of it.

Her breathing had finally stopped. I closed my eyes briefly. I'd never seen this before. The death of an animal. I remember staying home with the baby when she was two weeks old while my wife took our 18-year-old cat to be put down. She was the only one of us in the room with the vet while her life left her little body. She'd come home sniffling with red, puffy eyes and locked herself in the bedroom for the next couple hours. We were the ones responsible. Her for choosing when the cat would die, me for ending this deer's life. I put my hand on her head and waited until I heard the sirens in the distance. The trooper pulled up a few feet behind the deer, got out of the car and removed his hat. "Looks like a rough scene". I nodded. He filed his report quickly. It was pretty obvious what had happened. "Common for this time of year". I told him about the fawn and he pointed the beam of his flashlight behind us into the woods. He scanned about ten feet in each direction but there was nothing to be seen. We walked up and down the road with our lights for a few minutes but there was no trace of her. No movement, no trees crashing, no eyes shining back. "Well, hopefully she'll wander into someone's yard tomorrow. Folks around here are likely to call the DNR right away if they see something like that". I nodded. "Anything you want to get from the car before the tow company gets here?" I opened the back door and unhooked the child seat. I set it on top of the roof and leaned in once more, digging into the backseat trash bag. I gently smoothed out the little drawing. "I think that's it" I said and closed the door.