“Mom, where’s Cincinnati?” The atlas lay open on the boy’s lap.

“In Ohio, dear.”

“That’s where Grandma and Grandpa live, isn’t it?”

“Yes, dear.”

“When will we get there?”

She paused, her eyes flicking up to the clouds, computing. Humming tires and rushing wind filled the void, and the radio’s solemn voice hung in the air: “…the Dow Jones Industrials were up 34 points today in heavy trading…”

“Another three hours.”

“Oh.” He bent his head over the maps, tracing the lines that flickered among the words.

“You should try to rest: it will be late when we arrive.” She removed a hand from the wheel and stirred the pile behind her seat to grasp a pillow and give it to the boy. He leaned his head against the cushion, still breathing irregularly and peering through the glass. The thick clouds and fields flowed as water, gray and brown and gold.

He pointed to the asphalt. “Mom, what are those lines?”

“Those tell you where the car is supposed to be. You’re not supposed to cross the yellow one, because cars coming the other way are over there. And you’re not supposed to cross the white line because the road doesn’t go that way. So you stay in the middle.”

“But what if I don’t want to go between the lines?” His eyes jumped to and fro along the blurred stripe of golden paint.

“I’d say you’d better, because if you don’t you’ll get in an accident.”

His eyes blurred and refocused: “Who said the road is supposed to go this way?”

“Somebody a long time ago said: ‘we need a road going to Cincinnati, so let’s build one.’ And so they did, and now we can drive on it and go to Cincinnati.”

“Oh.” Gold on the left, white on the right.

Cars drove past, their headlights acute focal points in the portrait of gray. The shredded rays of sun that burst through the clouds burned as golden cinders in the ashen world. The cars were slate and gray; and the boy hid them behind his thumb. The finger trembled as the car did on the uneven highway, and the cars bounced from their hiding.

“Can I have a pen, Mom?”

Her hand again dived into the pile, and emerged victorious with a pen. He clasped it in his hand and opened his book to a blank page. He scrawled a line from left to right across the white sheet, the pen shaking like the needle of a seismograph. And his fingers opened, and his head fell quietly against the pillow.