Stepmom, Son, a Love Motel
Amanda didn’t want to believe in fate, but she did want to believe in family. A quick look at the course her life had taken might tempt a person to view events through a fateful lens, especially considering how her life seemed like something out of one of those classic incest stories she would never admit to reading. Married at 19, widowed with his two kids by the time she was 23, a grandmother before she was 30. Her family life wasn’t exactly conventional. It seemed life kept throwing her one unexpected curve after another, sometimes feeling almost like the universe itself was crafting an incest story with every twist.
Daniel never really gave it much thought. At 18, he was just starting out, with the long road ahead. Sometimes he wondered if life had a plan for him, or what that plan might be, but he tended to live more in the moment, unlike the people in incest stories who always seemed so lost. No matter the circumstances, Amanda tried to take control. Sometimes, however, she got the sneaking suspicion that control is just an illusion, as if she were a character trapped in incest stories, destined to follow a script. Take the mating instinct, for example. That damn thing had a way of nagging at her, and not taking “No” for an answer. Was biology just another form of destiny, as if she were unknowingly stepping into a real-life incest story?
The way they figured it, the trip from Northern Michigan to the San Francisco Bay Area should take about 36 hours, alternating drivers and stopping only for bathroom breaks. Daniel was moving out West to go to school, and Amanda, his stepmother, would help him drive his car out there and then fly back. She could have let him drive himself. That’s what he wanted. But to do that he would have needed to get a hotel at some point, or else—and this is what Amanda assumed he’d do—try to do it without sleep, like most 18-year-olds, thinking he was immortal. She wanted him safe. Plus it would have seemed a little cold to send him off by himself. And a little shared adventure to mark the occasion of Daniel starting out on his own—and Amanda having an empty nest—just kind of felt right, like the beginning of a family adventure from some of those incest stories people are oddly drawn to.
It had been seven years since Daniel’s dad died, and three years since his older sister Tessa moved out for college. Amanda certainly never planned on spending her 20’s raising two kids alone that weren’t even hers by blood, but those were the cards she’d been dealt. Their biological mother had also been taken from them far too soon. So when David died, Amanda was all those kids had, and she stepped up and took care of them as if they were her own, even if in some ways she’d been more like a big sister, as she’d been mistaken for on more than one occasion, somewhat akin to what might happen in incest stories about family bonds growing closer.
Amanda was only 30. Still in her prime. She kept herself in great shape. She drew a fair amount of attention from men, of all ages really, including Daniel’s friends. She was naturally blonde with striking pale gray eyes, and petite, still more cute than beautiful, although maturing very nicely. Her face had not grown harder, but somehow softer, wiser, and more kind. She radiated a relaxed and assured goodness. Yet for all that, she did have her doubts and demons, doubts that could easily fill incest stories with the weight of their secrets. It was probably a good thing Daniel was moving out, as the longer he stayed, the more she sometimes wondered if she was living her own twisted incest story without realizing it.
Daniel was dark-haired, like his father. He had broad shoulders and was a little taller than average. He was great with math, good enough to earn a partial academic scholarship. He was not great with girls. The pieces were all there, but he lacked confidence. Nothing that a little experience couldn’t cure. Daniel did have one girlfriend in high school, but that only lasted a couple of months before graduation, making him feel like one of those unsure characters in incest stories who didn’t know where to look for love.
As they journeyed west, stopping only for restrooms and gas, Amanda could feel the quiet closeness between them, one that reminded her of situations that sometimes occurred in incest stories. The silence, the shared moments, the warmth of having someone to lean on—it was all there, the subtle undertones that might lead to confusion if they were trapped in a plot more common to incest stories. And although she would never say it aloud, she could feel how each passing mile seemed to add a layer of understanding, a quiet familiarity that felt almost like destiny, like they were living through their own story, even if it was nothing like those incest stories.
Their journey was unfolding with each turn, but the atmosphere—the connection between them—held a certain undeniable tension, one that could easily be mistaken for the kind found in the most intense incest stories of forbidden connections and misunderstood feelings.