Pomona

There's an elderly couple embracing in the parking lot. We are parked outside of a drug store in California. We are driving to Pomona to visit my girlfriend's Aunt and Uncle. It's only an hour trip but it feels like an eternity.

Rachel and I in that little car of hers. Late July. Her dog running back and forth between us, alternating which window he sticks his head out of. To make conversation I ask her if she wants to stop and get a bite to eat.

"We'd better not. My Aunt is making us dinner"

Her Aunt was a woman named Sue. Her Mother's Sister. She was a mildly cold woman. Judgemental. Angry. Rachel knew this. She didn't pretend to like her. But family is family. You love them even if you don't like them.

"We do need gas though", she declares.

We head out of the drug store parking lot and leave the elderly couple to their firm embrace. Perhaps they haven't seen each other in a while. The woman is stroking the man's arm with her wrinkled fingers. Her mouth is open with a smile.

We pull into a Shell station and she orders me to stay in the car while she pumps the gas. The smell of gasoline enters my nose and it takes me back to childhood. Summer road trips with my Mom, smoking stolen cigarettes on the curb in front of the filling station on Cornwall Street, day drives up to the mountains with lost loves to sneak kisses. I loved that gasoline smell. It reminded me of home.