On The Road to Muskegon, Michigan at 10 o’clock at Night
Just off the highway on the road to Muskegon, the road narrows, the street lights are few and far between and it is the middle of April, and my best friend Corrie and I are driving through the darkness like it is a thick fog, like this road, straight as it is, could lead us right to the edge of Lake Michigan, could drop us in if we kept going because it is that kind of road that looks like it will keep going — past the small town liquor store, past the church on the corner, past the post office and a flag that is at half mast because the pope has just died, and we have been talking about cardinals all day, how my mother is gone and so is Corrie’s aunt and the cardinals with their shock of red that were fluttering in the pine trees outside our inn mid-afternoon made us think that maybe they are still with us, because cardinals, Corrie tells me, are symbols of loved ones lost who have a message for us, or some news, or some comfort to share with us, and so that is what is on our minds as we drive, take the turn ahead, keep our eyes on the road and it is just a moment, barely time to react when a deer in her slender brown skin steps halfway onto the road, her eyes meeting ours, that brief moment when you don’t know how to get out of the way, or who will get out of the way first and yet there is no need for panic because hers is so slight a step, and Corrie swerves just enough, pulls past the deer, keeps going down this road that will never end, and there is nothing to say — nothing at all, not who I think the deer might be, not how I see my mother in her too, because it isn’t just in the cardinals but in these sleek steps too, the soft bank of this stretch of road, the way it is just us out here, and there are messages that maybe she needs to share with me, love that she needs to pass along, some sort of promise she is keeping, this comfort in the middle of Michigan, in the lakeside road and the April night and the way our loved ones come back to us in fresh water waves the shape of birds and deer on spring nights like these and other creatures that I cannot name, that I have not seen yet, but one day I will. One day, I will tell you everything.
Jacqueline Goyette
Jacqueline Goyette is a writer from Indianapolis, Indiana. Her writing appears in both print and online journals, including Tahoma Literary Review, Phoebe Journal, Stanchion, The Citron Review, Bending Genres, and Centaur Lit. Her work is also featured in the 2025 Best Small Fictions anthology and has been nominated for Best of the Net and Best Microfiction. She currently lives in the town of Macerata, Italy with her husband Antonello and her cat Cardamom.