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whoa whoa whoa, I’ll go where you wanna go // don’t you don’t you know I’ll go out and hit the road
just roll the window down and close your eyes // you can sleep while I drive
Sleep While I Drive – Quinn XCII
The sun had gone down over I-75, and on a Sunday night in September there were few other cars on the road. The long weekend was nearing a close now that they were closer to Atlanta than they were to Savannah, and Randolph was beginning to feel the effects of spending a weekend with a ten-year-old who had no shortage of energy.
Seated in the passenger seat, his head bobbed up and down as he struggled to ward off sleep. He’d been falling asleep since four o’clock and Kit only allowed him one weak protest before insisting on driving the rest of the way home. Now that the sun had set and the cruise control was on he was a lost cause, but continued to fight to stay awake. Like a toddler refusing to settle down for the night, with a valiant protective instinct to keep her awake for the long drive.
It was Kit’s turn to protest now, having argued with toddlers of her own, she promised that she had no problem staying alert on the highway. Despite all attempts, even she could not compete with his willpower and resigned to let him continue the fight. The only way to keep him awake so that he could keep her awake would be to keep him talking.
Somewhere around exit 205, he reached a point where he was speaking without thinking, and she could not resist how sweet his voice sounded in the sleepy haze.
“I still cannot believe you two stayed up all night.”
“We didn’t stay up all night,” he mumbled.
“Gregg and I beg to differ.”
The conversation over breakfast, and a second mug of coffee, was regarding a certain light emanating from the tent around three in the morning. Randolph had promised a night of camping in the backyard after heavy rains thwarted the trip earlier in the summer, and stayed true to his word.
Sammie was still too young to spend the night outside entirely on her own, especially considering the sounds of the nighttime. The remaining adults chose the air-conditioned accommodations and pillow-top mattresses over the plastic and nylon, leaving him and Sammie alone to make the most of the evening. The crash from the s’mores-induced sugar high that he anticipated, however, was severely delayed.
“Honestly, Randolph, you told her ghost stories in the middle of the night?”
“Not ghosts. Cryptids.”
“Oh, my mistake.” A light, sarcastic laugh echoed her correction and his heavy exhale was the only acknowledgement of the teasing. “Cryptids.”
He waved his hand in front of his chest and frowned. “Doesn’t matter. Neither are real.”
“You don’t believe in cryptids?” Kit turned her head in disbelief and he shook his head. “None of them? Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, chupacabras… nothing like that?”
“Nope.”
“I don’t believe you.” While sleep had made him honest, the defense was coming from a man who was nearly fluent in young adult fantasy novels given as gifts to not one but three youngsters, and who could explain the origins of half of the legends alluded to within the books. “You go on and on about mythical creatures!”
“In fiction! I’m a man of science,” he protested. His eyes were still closed but the lines of his face still showed every bit of the glare she anticipated. “There’s no empirical evidence of cryptids or mythological entities.”
“Alright, Agent Scully. Do you believe in aliens?”
“I want to believe.”
Kit rolled her eyes and the back of her hand collided gently with his chest when he smirked, playing into the reference. “Do you?” She repeated.
“Oh, yeah. There’s no way it’s just us in the universe. Someone’s gotta be out there.” He shifted in his seat to get a better view at the moon high on the horizon and defended his point. “But again, no evidence.”
“What about spirits?”
“No.”
“Magic?”
“Nope.”
“Anything supernatural? Witches, psychics, demonic possession?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
Truthfully, she wasn’t expecting any other answer, but it surprised her how skeptical he was of the paranormal and fantastical. He had shifted in his seat again and now leaned his cheek against his hand, resting near the window in a poor attempt to fend off the tiredness.
She wracked her brain for any other topic along the same line of conversation and finally asked, “Angels?”
“Ah,” he smiled. A cute, dopey smile that reached his still-closed eyes. “Yep.”
Kit chuckled at how certain he was, and how his lips punctuated the p in his answer. “Explain that one, man of science.”
“Got evidence.”
“Your own evidence?” The words curled into a smile as he nodded. She was unable to resist this sleep-drunk version of Randolph Bell, nodding off in the passenger seat as they drove back from a weekend with his family. “Is it peer-reviewed?”
“Yep.”
Kit left a few seconds for him to elaborate, but his eyes had drifted closed again. “What’s your evidence, Bell?”
He hummed quietly. “You.”
“Me?”
He nodded. “Angel. Protector, savior, guardian… for everyone. But especially for me.” Every answer had gotten quieter and less articulate, mumbled through the cover of sleep. “Miraculous,” he finally whispered.
Kit was tempted to allow him to fully sleep now, to stop asking him questions that kept him from falling unconscious. But if the earlier sleep-drunk version of him was hard to resist, this version was damn near impossible.
“What’s miraculous?”
He held up his left hand, the single band of gold on his fourth finger still so new reflecting in the moonlight. “You fell for me. Straight from heaven.”
Only a few months ago she had stood next to him in front of a justice of the peace and put that same golden band around his finger. Sometimes it felt like yesterday, and sometimes it felt it had always been there, since the first moment he kissed her goodnight. The single symbol of their lives together was proudly on display and close enough for her to touch.
She reached for that same reminder of his love and devotion and rubbed her thumb over the back of his knuckles before curling her fingers around his.
“You are very endearing when you’re half asleep.”
“’m not sleeping.”
“Of course not,” she whispered with a smile. “You’re wide awake.”
“Mhmm. Wanna know how I know?”
Randolph sat up taller in the seat, turning towards her and the speeding background of the highway behind her. His eyes were red and half-lidded, and Kit wanted to stare towards him and lose herself in the loose, semi-conscious euphoria he was in, but turned back to the road.
“How, love?”
He squeezed her hand and grinned. “Can’t do that in my dream. Must be awake.”
Her hand remained firmly in his for another few miles as they approached the lights of downtown Atlanta, his eyes once again closed and his cheek resting on his shoulder. Kit was certain that he had drifted fully off to sleep, and if not yet, he would certainly be asleep by the time they got home.
“I married a sap.” She shook her head slightly and let his hand go, needing both to navigate the familiar streets.
He mumbled a correction. “A romantic.”
The final twenty minutes from the highway to their house would feel like an eternity now that all that she could think about was putting the car in park, kissing the corner of his sleepy smile, and curling up beside him for the rest of the night.