The princess and the pea

I almost ran over a frog on the way to Nate’s house.
I had just gotten off of a plane 4 hrs earlier.
My hometown.
My mom’s car.
Rain, wind and before I left the house my father warned me:
“Don’t park under a tree because it might fall on the car
and don’t lose your mother’s keys.”
It wasn't that windy
and I'm the responsible daughter.
To a fault.
It plagues me.
How soon he forgets who I am when I'm gone for a few months.
The roads in Lorain never felt so bumpy.
I forget that some roads are bad and that most roads are terrible in South Lorain.
It still rains.
I hadn’t seen a frog in what feels like ten years.
I don’t know why I looked at the road hard enough to see a frog crossing it.
I swerved.
I image a yellow road sign for Frog Crossing.
One big frog and little tadpoles trailing behind it.
If you squint it looks like sperm chasing an egg.
I had forgotten about frogs just like I had forgotten about worms.
Worms would litter the sidewalks on rainy walks to grade school.
I mistakenly thought worms liked water.
Why else would they take to the sidewalks when it rained?
Once, I put some in a plastic container I had already filled up with water.
I thought I might keep them for pets.
They were all dead within minutes of their swim.
The car ride was no longer enjoyable.
I remember that the freedom of driving is just an illusion until you hit something.
I should tell my friends that I just killed something.
I wasn’t sure.
No thump and I would have felt it in the pit of my stomach.
I think.
It wouldn't be an interesting story anyway.
Only to me.
I think to myself, I used to see them while cutting the grass once in a while.
When stray cats lived under the shed in the backyard.
We tried to bribe them with milk in a Styrofoam plate.
“If you feed them they’ll never go away.”
(2005)