Disclaimer: None of it belongs to me. Just this story.

trope_bingo trope: road trip

ladiesbingo prompt: relative values: families

dark_bingo prompt: character death

Summary: Helga and Olga honor Miriam's unexpected request. Spoilers for 'Road Trip'.

Warning: as per the dark_bingo prompt, this deals with the death of a minor character.

IN MEMORIAM

I

Slowly they made their way across the open field in the moonless Wyoming night, keeping an eye on the dark building in the distance, instinctively crouching ever so slightly as they moved through the tall grass toward the riding pen. There were no lights on; anyone who might be inside the ranch had retired long ago. But they didn't want to risk a sighting.

Theirs was an errand of secrecy. Justin Miller, the man who now owned the Owl Creek Canyon Ranch, might have had no problem with what they were about to do; and they could have told him the story of Miriam spending her summers here when she was a little girl, how she became a junior rodeo champion, how happy she was and about her final wish to rest here. But they didn't want to risk getting 'no' for an answer. So they decided they wouldn't ask or say a word to anyone. They would just come under cover of darkness and take care of Miriam's request.

After all, nobody said they couldn't.

For a moment they were still, leaning on the low wooden fence surrounding the large paddock and contemplating the spot where Miriam Pataki, at the time Miriam Larsen, had learned and practiced her rodeo skills. Then Olga quietly withdrew from her satchel the metal box containing their mother's ashes.

II

"The Owl Creek Canyon Ranch?" Olga read aloud, incredulous. For the first time, they were going through Miriam's instructions thoroughly and getting her papers in order. "She wants to be cremated and have her ashes scattered there."

They had to look the place up on the internet. It was somewhere in Wyoming, in the middle of nowhere, and there was a page dedicated to its history. For several decades the ranch had been home to a rodeo training camp for kids. Falling on hard times a few years ago – like so many other businesses in the country – the owners had cut a deal with Justin Miller, who bought the ranch and the land and intended to reopen the camp the following summer.

"This must be where Miriam spent her summers when she was younger," Helga remarked half-mindedly. Seeing her sister's confusion she realized this was something she'd never heard about. "It's a long story. Miriam told me about it when we drove out to see Grandma Olya in South Dakota during one of my school vacations. You were already away at school."

She paused at the dismayed expression on Olga's face. Despite the distance she'd intentionally maintained between herself and their parents Helga knew what it felt like to be kept in the dark about things, to feel left out and ignored. Big Bob and Miriam had fawned over Olga – she was the beam of sunshine in their lives. So it wasn't surprising she might feel slighted in some way. Helga had no need to rub it in or to allow her older sister to keep hurting; she'd outgrown that.

"For what it's worth you're pretty lucky you missed that trip," she offered kindly. "Most of it was a disaster. Miriam being Miriam and everything."

"I guess it's not really surprising that she didn't want to be buried in Hillwood Cemetery next to Dad."

"No, it isn't," Helga agreed.

At one time their parents were a happy couple, or at least they succeeded at the pretense of happiness. They doted on their unexpected first daughter Olga, a sweet, bright, upbeat little girl who gave them purpose and the promise of rekindling a love between them that they weren't sure was ever really there. Miriam enjoyed her smoothies spiked with vodka, but her limit was two a day and she still managed to raise her daughter and support her husband in his endeavor to run a business. By the time Olga was five Big Bob's Beeper Emporium was thriving and Miriam basked in the glow of her husband's success as a business owner.

Five years later Helga arrived on the scene, as unexpected as her older sister had been, equally as intelligent but more challenging. Where Olga was well-behaved and serene, now self-sufficient at the age of ten and in some ways taking care of her parents, Helga was a restless, inquisitive needy infant. The cracks in the façade began to show. Big Bob was busy expanding his beeper empire and had no patience to deal with such a spirited little one; he wanted to relax and watch The Wheel when he got home. Miriam responded to his lack of interest and the pressure of having to raise another child by withdrawing. Two drinks a day increased to three and then four and then she lost track, and it didn't matter anymore anyway.

There were some family outings, all of them dismal in one way or another, and futile attempts at bonding. One summer they even rented a beach house for a couple of weeks. But Bob ended up getting badly sunburned and spent the entirety of their vacation lying in the house unable to move. Miriam went out on her own, made a new friend and had a great time.

That mini vacation summed up the marriage. Both Miriam and Bob seemed to have a better time apart and with other people than they ever did with each other. That they wouldn't care to be together in death wasn't surprising.

Helga returned her attention to the computer screen. Bringing up a website that offered discounted flights she ran a search for available flights from Hillwood to the city nearest the Owl Creek Canyon Ranch. There were no direct flights, and even taking a connecting flight didn't land them close. They'd have to rent a car then drive a good distance from the airport to the ranch. Though it would take a couple of days, several refills of their gas tank and at least two extra nights in a motel, after figuring everything out and checking their arithmetic twice driving still wound up being the cheaper option. The price of the plane ticket alone was exorbitant.

"Criminy!" Helga blurted out when she saw the cost. "You'd think we were flying to some place exotic like Fiji."

She frowned at the thought of spending so long in a car alone with her sister. She wasn't nearly as resentful of her as she was when she was younger but they were still strangers to each other in a way. It wouldn't be much fun.

But Olga brightened at the idea.

"It won't be so bad. We can enjoy the scenery, spend time together. I know we've never been close and we don't talk a lot. But we're sisters." She paused and bit her lip. She seemed to be expecting a negative reaction. "Anyway, at least we won't have to deal with airport security."

That was actually a good point, Helga had to admit. Even domestic flights were nerve-wracking these days.

The service and cremation would take place the next day. Then they would need to go through Miriam's personal effects, sell or donate whatever they didn't want, clean and ultimately sell the house since neither of them wanted to live in a place that held no fond memories. It was the end of April and late May seemed like a nice month to take a road trip; not cold anymore, not yet sweltering either. They would clear their schedules and leave Memorial Day weekend.

"You know, I had no idea Mama spent her summers on a ranch when she was a little girl," Olga said as Helga clicked away from the website about the ranch and pulled up an online map service. "She never really talked about her childhood or anything before she was married. How did you find out about it?"

Driving with Olga wouldn't be worse than it was with Miriam, Helga decided. Besides, despite the series of mishaps that trip ended up being one of her better memories of her mother. It was one of the few times she witnessed Miriam succeeding at something and almost content with herself. She'd been truly proud of her. And she'd glimpsed a new facet of Miriam: the promising young girl she'd been at one time, before life happened to her. Olga deserved to share in that part of their mother's life too.

"I'll tell you about it on the way."

#

When she was in the fourth grade Helga had been on the road they were traveling with Miriam, passing the same farms and trees and rolling green hills, the endless greenery interrupted with business districts where they would find small strip malls, motels and chain restaurants. At some point they would turn south toward Wyoming instead of continuing east to South Dakota as they'd done before, but not before they encountered the hot spots from that long ago road trip.

She and Olga didn't talk much on the drive, at least not at first. There was nothing and everything to say, and they each had different reasons for balking at talking about one or both of their parents or about anything that was very personal.

Their different circadian rhythms didn't help things. Olga was a lark, she was a nightingale. How anyone could be so perky and well put-together before ten o'clock in the morning was beyond Helga. But that was Olga, cheerful and bubbly, ready to meet the sun the moment it came up, her hair and make-up impeccably in place. She'd be all but chirping by the time they walked to the car to begin the day's journey, with Helga grunting noncommittally in response.

At least she was relatively quiet, confining her activities to the bathroom and allowing Helga to sleep late in relative peace. In return Helga shut the lights and left the room once Olga turned in for the night and sat in the lobby to read or have a drink from the vending machine. When she was ready to go to sleep she went back, changed in the bathroom and quietly felt her way to her bed in the dark.

This transferred over to their driving, too. Olga got behind the wheel in the mornings. Helga took over some time after four o'clock.

Perhaps it was their lifelong lack of closeness that made it so easy to get along in such tight quarters. They tiptoed around each other carefully, the way one would when forced to share space with a stranger. Had they been more familiar they may have been more apt to step over personal lines and bicker.

After a day they hit the first hot spot from that road trip with Miriam. Herb's Big Guy Restaurant was still in business but The Wheeler Inn adjacent to it was now a Motel 8 and there was no longer a karaoke lounge. They stayed in the Motel 8 and ate at Herb's Big Guy, and while they snacked on hot wings and celery sticks and drank Yahoo sodas – Helga directly from the bottle, Olga daintily from a glass – Helga told Olga about the karaoke contest that Miriam won when they stopped here the first time.

"I bet she sang Tomorrow's Only Just a Day Away," Olga laughed. "She loved that song."

Helga laughed with her. "Yep, that was the one. It was humiliating."

Everything Miriam did on that trip embarrassed and disappointed her, at least at first. She winced inwardly now at the painful recollection of telling her mother that she was a lousy mother who couldn't do anything right. It wasn't that Miriam didn't care – she did, in her own way – but she was alcoholic, depressed and absentminded, and she was out of touch with the nine-year-old daughter she still considered her 'little girl'.

Then they had the series of mishaps.

Helga gripped the neck of her bottle of Yahoo soda and studied the label while she gathered her thoughts before beginning.

"She won a mechanical bull riding contest in another bar somewhere further along the way to South Dakota, I can't remember where. It might have been on this road, I'm not sure. She used our last five dollars to enter and won five hundred bucks. It was really something. She was the only woman and she went up against guys named Slim and Lefty and Buck. And she beat them. We got the car fixed and then after that she told me about how when she was nine or ten she started learning to ride horses and rope, probably at this ranch. She became the state bull riding champion."

She nodded at Olga's astonished expression, finished off her soda then launched into the story from the point where they checked out of The Wheeler Inn and Miriam left her purse on the roof of the car.

To her surprise and slight dismay Olga dropped her head on her hand with a groan and covered her eyes.

"I lost count of how many times she did that."

"Really? I don't know why but I thought that was just something she started doing with me."

"No." Olga raised her head and smiled wryly. "Not just with you. Mama had a hard time functioning sometimes."

Helga snorted. "That's the understatement of the century."

"It was the drinking and depression more than anything else, you know."

"No doy. The whole neighborhood knew that Miriam was a depressed, stay-at-home alcoholic."

They both lowered their heads and looked down at the same time. Olga fidgeted with her napkin. Helga picked up her unused fork and poked at the chicken bones on her plate. Then she took a deep breath.

"I hate talking about her like this. She's gone now. It's disrespectful and there's no point—"

She looked up when Olga reached across the table and patted her arm. "I know. I hate it too, Little Sis."

As quickly as she could Helga suppressed the wince at being called 'Little Sis'. She knew it was Olga's way of trying to bond and show that she cared, but it never felt completely genuine. Helga knew it bothered her that they had never been close. But Olga tried too hard to make it happen; and although Helga's resentment towards her sister had dissipated for the most part, she still looked back sometimes at the special treatment her parents gave Olga and felt the slightest twinge of rancor. Keeping a certain distance made things easier.

Helga stabbed at a chicken bone with her fork once more, then took another deep breath and set the fork down. At least Olga wasn't calling her 'Baby Sis' anymore.

Olga continued, seemingly oblivious to Helga's reaction. "But it's the way it was and I don't think it's bad—or disrespectful to acknowledge it. She was our mother and we love her, but that was the truth. She was unhappy. Do you remember the time I came home from school and told them I was dropping out of college to get married? I don't even remember the guy's name now—"

"Jacques LeFleur or something ridiculous like that," Helga filled in helpfully.

"For some reason I don't remember him having such a fancy name. Good thing I didn't marry him, obviously, since I didn't care enough about him to even remember his name. Anyway, I don't know if you were in the room, but when I told them Mama said, 'Don't make the same mistake I did.' She stopped herself. But that much got out."

"Yeah, I remember that," Helga said, averting her face and blinking back threatening tears. The more they talked about Miriam the more she grieved for the sadness that was her mother's life. She picked up her soda and took a drink to push down the lump in her throat.

"And there were times – most of the time – when doing more than one thing at a time was more than she could handle. When I was still a little girl I got into the habit of checking for her purse as soon as I got in the car to make sure she hadn't left it on the roof again."

"Huh, you were smarter than me, I guess."

She never even thought to check to see if Miriam had done it again. She just reacted after the fact.

"I just worried more than you," Olga said quietly. "If anything happened it would be me letting them down."

Olga really did have a deep need to please their parents, to please everybody. In a way maybe her older sister had been right when she told her years ago that she was lucky their parents didn't pay so much attention to her. It had made her more independent, free. No one was ever looking for her to be perfect. It would never occur to her to blame herself for Miriam's absentmindedness or anything else. Her legacy was anger not guilt.

"You know that's not true, Olga."

The waitress stopped by their table at that moment and asked if they needed refills. Olga ordered another Yahoo soda for each of them and poured what was left in her bottle into her glass as the waitress walked away. Helga took the opportunity the interruption had provided to pick up where she'd left off in the story of the previous road trip.

"Anyway, it was one thing after the other. Miriam lost the directions." She mimicked Miriam, imitating her foggy, vague way of speaking while she demonstrated how she'd been driving with one hand and fumbling for the envelope with the directions scribbled on it with the other until it blew out the window and off into oblivion. "I wrote the directions on the back of that….ohhh…oopsie."

Helga dropped her impression.

"She drove halfway off the road trying to read and drive at the same time, then lost the envelope while getting us back on the road. Of course we didn't have a road map. We had a map of Wanky Land though. Then she almost ran head on into a truck and we did drive off the road, all the way off the road, into a muddy pond in the middle of a cow field."

"Here you go," said the waitress cheerily, setting two full bottles of soda down and opening them with a bottle opener she pulled from her apron. She cleared the empties away and left.

"That was a pretty good imitation of Mama. So you were stuck in the pond," she prodded.

Helga swallowed a few gulps of soda before continuing. "Yeah, we had to push the car out and up onto the road."

"Just the two of you?"

"Don't ask me how we managed it. I was only nine. I still don't know how we did it." Helga paused to nibble on some celery. Olga pushed the small silver cup of bleu cheese dip toward her. "Thanks. Once we were on the road Miriam got behind the wheel and I pushed from the back of the car. We somehow made it to the next bastion of civilization, which was nothing but Stan's Auto Repair and Floyd's Bar and Grill across the road. Stan told us it would cost nearly five hundred dollars to fix the car. Well, Miriam's purse with all of our money and credit cards was long gone. I had five dollars, which I was going to use to buy a cheeseburger. Miriam picked up some flyer that Floyd's had about this mechanical bull riding contest that night. And the prize was five hundred dollars, exactly what we needed to fix the car."

Olga poured some of her soda into her glass. "So you gave her the five dollars to enter."

"More like she insisted on it."

"And she won the five hundred dollars."

"Good thing she demanded the money, right? We would still be stranded there. Anyway, it was really unbelievable. I had no idea—there was so much I didn't know about her. There's probably still a lot I don't know about her."

Another flood of sadness surged through her as she spoke those last words because with them came the crushing realization that it was too late.

Olga stared thoughtfully into her soda. "Maybe, after we've taken care of Mama's ashes – maybe we can put our heads together and come up with a better picture of her. For both of us to share. I didn't know about her rodeo days. I'm sure there are other things she told me that maybe you didn't hear about." She raised her head and met Helga's eye. "We can put together the anecdotes we have like this one."

Helga thought about it. "That's not a bad idea. Okay."

#

"I think this might be it."

Helga had turned the car off long ago. They continued to sit there peering through the windshield at the bar and restaurant. The parking lot lights were on now that the sun had set and the bar's neon lights glimmered: signs in front that said 'Floyd's' and 'Open 24 Hours', and three bull-shaped neon lights mounted on the roof, the light on each moving from the horns to the tail then reappearing in a blink on the horns in a continuous cycle.

Those bulls on the roof did look familiar. The moving neon lights were still disconcertingly out of sync, the tail lighting up on one while the light was still moving on another without any discernible and regular rhythm between them.

They'd checked out of the Motel 8 that morning and continued on their way, sticking with the country road and avoiding the highway. After hearing the entire story Olga really wanted to visit the place where Miriam had her moment of triumph. Helga reluctantly agreed to stick to this road for one more day and give up if they didn't run smack into it by that night.

Olga pointed across the way. "The auto repair shop is still there. Fred's Auto Repair."

Near the shoulder of the road was the same bench, set a few yards in front of the gas pumps, where a bus that came by every two or three hours picked up and dropped off. She'd sat on that bench, catching only the tail end of Miriam's turn riding the bull. The men who were competing were sneering at her before the contest even started, and Miriam was so intimidated by them she ended up slipping off the bar stool. Embarrassed and unable to bear to watch her mother make a fool of herself, Helga went outside, grabbed her suitcase from the car and went to sit on that bench. It wasn't until she heard the loud cheering from all the way across the road that she went back into the bar, to see what was actually happening.

"I'm sure it was called Stan's Auto Repair."

"Maybe Fred is Stan's son and he inherited it."

"Yeah. Or maybe Stan sold the place to Fred."

They were quiet, studying the neon signs. Olga broke the silence.

"You know, Helga, I'm not that hungry. I can wait until we get to the next stop. We don't have to go in if you don't want to – I just wanted to see it."

"It's just a bar. We can go in. Anyway, I'll finally get to eat a cheeseburger at Floyd's."

For some reason Olga burst into laughter at that. It eased Helga's tension and she smiled.

"I never went on a real road trip with Mama," Olga said as they climbed out of the car and walked toward the front door. "The few times I went to Grandma Olya's we flew to Rapid City then rented a car and drove from the airport to where she lived. I wish I could've seen Mama win that contest."

"It was really incredible. I wish I'd seen the whole thing."

Floyd's still had a jukebox and the décor appeared the same: license plates mounted all over the walls, a dart board, paintings of bulls, wall mounts in the shape of bull horns. A sign above the bar announced that another mechanical bull riding contest would be taking place that night. Helga promptly informed Olga that she did not want to stay to see it.

They finished their burgers and sodas quickly and didn't stick around. Olga leaned her head against the window and slept while Helga drove well into the night, leaving Floyd's far behind.

#

A full day of driving later they crossed the border into Wyoming.

Had they not detoured they would probably have arrived much sooner. But Helga didn't regret the detour too much. Visiting Floyd's once more had allowed something inside of her to finally settle, though she couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was.

Helga had brought her laptop along in case she was inspired to write. While she hadn't written any poetry or prose so far on this trip she had typed up some of the anecdotes about Miriam that she and Olga had begun to share with each other. It was saved to a file simply titled 'Miriam Larsen: A Life Revealed'. It was a silly name and she figured she'd probably change it later, but Olga liked it. She liked that Helga had chosen to use Miriam's maiden name.

The motel nearest the Owl Creek Canyon Ranch was still a half hour away. There were camp grounds that were closer but both of them wanted to have a bed and easy access to a shower. Anyway, they had no camping gear.

It was a small motel and basically deserted. Three or four other rooms were occupied but that was it. One young guy manned the desk, and as they walked to their car to drive around to the back of the building where their room was they spotted an older woman, maybe the man's mother, wheeling a cart with clean towels and cleaning supplies along the row of rooms in the front.

Their room was on the ground floor. Helga had asked for a room in back 'where it was quiet'. The man gave her a strange look and she couldn't blame him; this wasn't exactly a noisy area. But he acceded to her request and they were the only ones lodged back here, which meant they could leave and get in the car without anyone seeing them. But they waited until midnight anyway, long after the front office closed, making sure no one was around. It was unlikely anyone would even care what they were doing. But guilty as they already felt about their errand they were worried that someone might get nosy.

At midnight they slipped quietly out the door, got into Olga's car and drove out to the Owl Creek Canyon Ranch.

III

"Maybe we can sprinkle them around the edges," Olga whispered, though no one was around to hear them.

They both giggled nervously and quickly glanced over at the ranch to make sure the lights were still out.

"Nah, we should sprinkle it inside. Maybe trace the path where she rode."

Helga climbed into the riding pen then took the box containing the plastic bag of ashes from Olga so she could follow her over the fence. Olga took the box back once she was inside and opened it, and they passed it back and forth as they walked the perimeter of the large pen, each taking turns sprinkling a little bit of the ash until they'd made one complete circuit. What remained would go into the nearby Canyon River, where Miriam went when she wasn't training, to hike or picnic with friends. They'd do that tomorrow, when it was light out and they could see to navigate the more difficult terrain.

Olga's car was parked on the grass a few hundred yards to the west. They walked toward it in silence, glancing back every once in a while. For a long time they sat on the hood and stared off at the place where they'd left some of Miriam's ashes. The night was peaceful, the stars bright.

At some point Helga knew she would finally break down. But she wanted it to be when she was alone, holed up in her home, and definitely not while she was with Olga. To her relief and surprise, other than at the funeral itself Olga had refrained from launching into any of her typical fits of copious weeping. Even now that didn't seem to be a threat.

They didn't speak, each following their own train of thought, sharing a brief conspiratorial smile now and then. Knowing that at least one other person in the world understood, not just this loss but all the losses and the unhappiness of the family they shared was a relief for both of them. Even if they didn't become better friends, even if they went on with their lives as before, rarely speaking, they'd always have that bond of awareness of their family's complete craziness.

And they would still collaborate to piece together the stories of Miriam's life, at least for a while.

After a long time they agreed without words that they'd sat there long enough. They slipped off the hood and got in the car. Helga started the engine and they both stiffened at the loudness of it. They looked toward the ranch again, afraid that Justin Miller would come running out any minute now and somehow divine that they'd sprinkled their mother's ashes in his paddock.

But nobody came, the windows were still dark. They burst into laughter then Helga shifted the car into drive and they headed back to the motel.