Nicole Farmer

car conversation en route to the airport

she’s curled into the front seat, feline, and looking intently into her phone, scrolling, texting and who knows what until we hit a bump and she looks up and I seize the moment to ask what her dad gave her for Christmas and she sighs and rolls her eyes and says okay but this is just between us—both sis and I owe dad money so instead of a gift he just deducted money from our debt and I want to scream but simply say I guess you should feel lucky he’s not charging you interest , that’s okay she says, you make up for it by doing the holidays doubly big and we both giggle—she looks out the window at the cold grey highway construction and the sluggish white nightmare sky where the sun can’t break through the clouds and then I squeeze her leg, she squeezes my hand then winks at me, goes back to her phone disappears into that void and I focus on the traffic, and we are somehow both smiling with bubbles floating out of our ears or maybe they are little pink hearts like the ones she creates on her tik tok posts