"Oh my god, David. We're being tailgated by a semi. How did you–how is that even possible?" Noelle regarded her brother in amazement and he let out a sigh of touchy exasperation.
He turned to face her. "Ok, Noelle, I–"
"EYES ON THE ROAD!" Everybody screamed at him.
"Geez you guys. Hold your horses." He took a defensive posture and turned his head back to the road, eliciting a collective sigh of relief. "I drove like, last year. So you are all totally ok."
David's mother Roseanne buried her head in her hands and shook back and forth. "Honey, David's going to kill us. Oh Hugh, why aren't you driving?"
Noelle leaned into the backseat to remind her parents. "Umm, in case you forgot, David's the only one with a driver's license. So when we crash, I don't want to, like, go to jail. No offense Dad."
"Your father has a driver's license! Honey, honey, why aren't you driving?" Roseanne turned to Hugh, who was sitting beside her and white knuckling his handle on the car ceiling: 'assist grip,' 'oh shit bar' or 'hail Mary,' people called that bar a lot of things.
"For the last time, Roseanne." Hugh sighed, really not wanting to do the whole rigmarole again. "It expired, ok?"
"Why did you let it expire!?" Roseanne shrieked and Hugh shrugged. She was an actress by profession and dramatic by nature.
"Well, I was so busy..." Hugh started explaining, again. His hand tightened on the hail Mary.
"Oh my god Mom, we already went over this like ten times." Noelle broke in. "Nobody wants David driving. Dad just had to have a chauffeur for like twenty years because he was so busy and his license expired."
"Noelle, nobody expects a self-respecting man to drive himself." Roseanne frowned at her daughter.
"Uhh...yeah. And that's why you're driving, isn't it David?" She said sugar-sweet.
"Totally." He nodded. "Because I have no self-respect." He wrenched the wheel and they swerved.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" Everybody screamed.
"Jesus Christ, David."
"What the hell, David!"
"Take it easy, son."
Roseanne shook her head in her palms. "Your father should be driving."
"Umm, yeah, I think we've gone over that. So David, what exactly were you swerving for? Hmmm?" Noelle stuck out her chin at him.
"Now's not the time Noelle." David shot her a self-important smirk and silently mouthed to her. 'Don't want to give Mom a panic attack, yeah?'
"Oh my god..." It was blackmail. She mouthed back 'eyes on the road.'
"Hey, hey!" Their mother spoke up from the backseat, oblivious to her child not keeping his eyes on the road because she was pasted to the window. "What's that truck doing?"
"Don't see that every day." Hugh remarked.
The Alton family was driving up a one lane mountain road, a scenic pass that would take them to their friends' mountain house, and an eighteen wheeler emblazoned Safeway: Eat Fresh had veered into the oncoming traffic lane to...pass them?
"Holy shit, David. A semitruck is passing you on an incline. Um, like, how fast are we going?"
David clacked his tongue. "Look for yourself, Noel."
"Uhh, so I never learned to read a speedometer."
"Uh-huh." David nodded as the truck started to overtake them.
"I always had, like, somebody to drive for me." She twirled her hair with a smile.
"Uh-huh."
Hugh leaned into the front, at last asserting his paternal role. "Son! We're only going 30 miles per hour. The speed limit is 65! What are you doing?"
"Umm, so I was actually in Europe for a while so I thought the speed limit was in kilometers per hour." David shrugged. "My bad."
Hugh gave his son a look. "Well we're in America."
Noelle tried to wrap her head around her brother's logic. "So the car in miles per hour, but the signs are in kilometers...?"
"Wow, can we just cool down. Everybody's so angry at me but uhhh, maybe if someone hadn't illegally lost all our money we'd still have a chauffeur like normal people." David said matter-of-factly.
"IT WAS ALL RICHARDS FAULT! That scumbag, I should've known he'd ruin us." Roseanne glowered, David's not-my-fault remark triggered memories in his mother like PTSD flashbacks to war: the nightmarish, shadowy department of revenue agents taking their furniture, belongings. Putting their slimy hands everywhere, even on her purses! She started crying and leaned against the door, away from her husband. It had been war. "I told you Hugh, not to trust our finances to him."
Hugh was a little offput by the accusation. "Honey, he's your brother and it was your idea."
"Oh." She said it like the last puff of air in a deflating balloon, and with suddenly dry eyes. Out the window, the semitruck had now passed them and began clumsily turning back into their lane.
"Wow." Noelle opined. "That truck can't be doing more than 40. Nice going, David."
"Son, we are going a little slow here. Miles not kilometers, remember?" Hugh wiggled his way between his children. "Speed it up a touch."
"No! Slow is good! Hugh, get back here!" Roseanne cried.
Noelle gave her father a speculative look. "Totally with you Dad, but, like, we're being passed right now. I'm not an expert, but I don't think that's when you accelerate."
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"Hugh! Get back here! You're going to die!" Roseanne yelled.
"Honey, I'm just leaning forward a bit to give our son advice."
"Dad! Everyone! I'm fine!" David waved a hand at his family.
"TWO HANDS–"
"Two hands on the wheel, oh my god." He said, and mashed the accelerator. "There, here you go." The car lurched forward, meager engine whining as it climbed to fifty miles per hour. The dull white of the eighteen wheeler returned into their windows...
"David, the truck!" Noelle yelled at him. "You're going to hit it! It's, like, merging into us."
"No inappropriate humor please, dear." Roseanne chided her daughter.
Noelle sighed in exasperation and David gave a much needed explanation for why they were accelerating into the truck which was merging into them. "Um, so I drove like last year. So don't worry about it. Just sit back and rela–."
The Alton family smashed into the side of the semi and were crushed against the guard rail.
____________________
A strange of hum permeated the air and Roseanne climbed to her feet. "Oh dear, where are we?" It was pitch black. I must be backstage at a theater. Maybe the Burgtheater in Vienna? That's where I performed in '83...what was I last doing? She meditated on the strange surroundings and her eyes widened as she realized where she was. No, this is The Palace Theater. Backstage was always rather dark there.
"Mom! What are you doing?" Roseanne was singing scales as Noelle came over to her, guided in the darkness by her voice.
"La~la~laa. Dear, I'm warming up of course. We're in the wings of the Palace Theater."
Noelle sighed, crossed her arms, frowned and said. "Um, mom. We're not in a theater. This is like, probably the afterlife. Remember how your stupid son killed us?"
Memories flooded back into Roseanne and she went wide-eyed and gasped. "That brother of yours! HE KILLED ME!" She broke down and started crying.
"See, this is why I could never go into theater." Noelle said, watching her mother hunch over and weep. "Not melodramatic enough."
Hugh appeared out of the darkness, too. "Oh, Roseanne dear." He knelt down to comfort her and Noelle watched their dark figures on the floor. Floor? Ground?
Roseanne was sobbing and sprawled out on the ground like a pancake, muscles rendered inert. Hugh tried to pull her up into a sitting position. "Honey, honey."
"Woww, so purgatory is, like, pretty dark?" Noelle ventured, stretching her arms.
"It's alright dear..." Hugh crooned to his wife.
A new voice broke in to correct Noelle. "No, mmm, I'm pretty sure you'd go to Hell Noelle."
"DAVID!" They all yelled at him.
Roseanne suddenly found it in her to get up and strode over to him, accusative finger drilling into his chest and spit flying in his face. "You killed us! You couldn't even drive a lousy car. You ran straight into a semi! What's wrong with you? I knew you were no good from the cradle when you swallowed my 24 karat diamond. Do you know how much that cost? It was one of a kind!" She shuddered and amended. "No, I knew you were rotten from the womb. What kind of baby would stop an actress from drinking during pregnancy? We should've put you up for adoption!"
"Whoa, whoa. Honey, honey." Hugh broke between them and tried to calm things down.
"Don't try to calm things down Hugh!" Roseanne pushed him aside. "What about that time David stole my eyeliner!"
"Wait..." David interjected with a frown. "I killed you?"
"Oh my god David, don't even try that." Noelle said. "Just own up to something for once in your life. This is so pathetic."
"No, really..." David looked confused. "What are you talking about...And actually I always own up to things and unlike someone else here, I can take responsibility–like how was I supposed to know as a baby not to eat a diamond?"
"Maybe if you had had good taste!" Roseanne triumphantly roared.
"Son! This is not the time." Hugh stepped back into the familiar role of mediator. "Acting confused might have worked when you were twelve and you could blame the missing birthday cake on Noelle, but we need to be honest with each other right now."
"Yeah David." Noelle said, hands on hips. "But you know what? I forgive you, hmm? Because we need to move forward as a family and stop, like, petty bickering."
"Forward into the afterlife!" Roseanne wailed.
Hugh furrowed his eyebrows. "No, honey. Our daughter is right. We need to forgive. We all make mistakes, but we move past them."
"Well I don't." Roseanne counterfired.
David looked around at his family and sunk to his knees. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" He started crying. "I've ruined all of your lives! Mom is right, I never should've been born."
"Hey, son, it's ok." Hugh knelt down and put his hand on his son. "If I had had my license..."
Noelle rolled her eyes and knelt too, patted her brother's back. "It's alright. Come on, get up." Then she whispered in his ear. "Uhh, is what I would say if you hadn't just said I should be in Hell. Like, stop with the act." She gave him a look and stood back up, brushing her legs.
"Son, that was a pretty rotten thing to say." Hugh had to admit.
"Yeah, like, I would never say that to anybody." Noelle chimed in again.
"Oh my god Noelle, you just can't get off your high horse, can you? You've told me to go to Hell at least a thousand times." David said, wiping his actor-tears and rising. He was proud he could cry like that.
"Ummm, I don't remember that actually. But I do remember getting killed by you, alongside my wonderful parents. So I think I'm, like, perfectly comfortable on my high horse, mister family murderer." Noelle retorted.
"Is it murder if it was an accident?" David scratched his chin. "Like, I died too you know. Why doesn't anyone feel bad for me." He nodded and dug in. "How do you all think I feel!?"
"Ok, I'm just going to take back my 'I forgive you.'" Noelle raised eyebrows and grimaced.
"Oh, I–" David began to reply, because that was total bullshit, but suddenly there was silence. Noelle opened her mouth to bestow her reply on the two words he did get out, but she couldn't make a sound either. Then Roseanne broke in, but even her loudest scream–or that's what it looked like to Noelle, David thought she was doing some kind of singing mouth exercise–couldn't generate any noise.
Somehow the entire Alton family had been silenced. For a family which had thrived on noise for generations, this was an incredibly unnerving and foreign experience for them. What do you mean I can't talk! David thought with unaccepting amazement. He pulled at his tongue just to check it was there.
Oh, this is like that time I was gagged for a week in Saudi Arabia. Noelle felt reassured once she made the connection. But at least I could, like, hear the prince talk. She felt less confident when she remembered that. Oh my god David, stop, like fondling your tongue. I don't want to touch your tongue. David kept pulling on his tongue.
This is like listening to my family talk! Hugh thought. Nothing's being said! It's just less noisy. A lot less noisy...hey, maybe I could get used to this.
"Whew." A tiny sigh came out from somewhere in the darkness.
Oh my god! With a lot of hitting and dragging and lip-flapping, the Altons assembled back to back in a defensive formation, watching the inky black for anything which might have made that sound: fear had awakened the family's latent survival instincts...well, all of the family's except for David's, who hadn't really exhibited survival instincts or been a team player recently. Instead, he decided to sit down by himself a ways off. Noelle glared at her brother's back and bared her fists.
Then a radiant young man melted out of the darkness and suddenly the whole family was facing him. Noelle dropped her fists, startled and strangely relaxed.