They were driving California Highway One. Part of a trip to Disneyland. They had planned and saved three years for this, and she had feared that the boys of seven and nine who had longed to see Disneyland were not the boys of ten and twelve who got to go.
It had been an exhausting day - they budgeted just one day. They had bought their mouse ears and their tee shirts and small gifts for friends and siblings. The big ride was down for maintenance and that was a disappointment, but still they had a great time.
``They'll remember this,'' she thought as she snapped their pictures in the company of Pluto. A childhood memory of bright sun and fantasy, flowers and smiling people. Something she knew they needed. There was no ``no'' or ``can't afford'' on that day.
They took the freeway down, but going home they followed Highway One through the dark unfriendly guts of L.A. She pulled over to sleep in Ventura but a cop moved her on.
At Santa Barbara they slept again, then went down to the beach in the early morning and she slept more as the sun began to warm the sand. If her boys had drowned she would have slept through it. When they woke her she sent them for coffee and Popsicles.
``Can we stay here?''
``We have to get going,'' she said.
There were other beaches. They descended wooden stairs down flower and bird and reptile laden cliffs to magic retreats where sand dollars lay strewn on golden sand. Their skinny white bodies turned red but no one cared. There were sand castles to build and dams to construct and baloney sandwiches to eat.
Back in the hot car, sand scraped and burning, disillusion set in. They started fighting in the back seat. When screaming didn't quiet them she pulled off the hair pin highway and made them get out. The sea and sky were blue, the rocks were black, the surf was white. The flowers yellow and pink and purple.
The boys were pissing on a rock and she was looking for a more private place to go when the shadow passed over them. She looked up and had her breath knocked out of her. A Condor! The tears were spouting from her eyes as she grabbed her sons' burning, tender shoulders and screamed against the wind ``A Condor! Look! A Condor!''
And the boys looked up and said ``Yea? So? Let go! You're hurting!''
Back in the car she tried to explain. The last wild Condors were to be trapped. To be bred in captivity. To save them, she said. But it would never be the same. They would never be the same. So this was a gift. Something to remember.
``You saw a wild Condor on this day,'' she said. ``Remember!''
But they didn't remember.