Worst Vacation Ever

By Deborah Sharp

Lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled. We couldn't make out the Atlantic Ocean outside.

The rain hadn't stopped since my mom and I checked in to the Smiling Coconut on Daytona Beach, three days before.

"How about another game of Scrabble, Jessica?" Mom asked.

"I guess," I shrugged.

I preferred TV. But the storm knocked out the power. We had candles. No air-conditioning. The temperature sweltered in the 90s.

This was our first trip since my father left. I was fourteen. When he was around, summer vacations were awesome: Grand Canyon mule riding; an African photo safari; shows and shopping in New York.

Daddy had really known how to have fun. Unfortunately, he didn't how to stay married. Or save money. After the divorce, Mom went back to work. Cash was tight.

I knew she was trying hard, so I rallied.

"Scrabble sounds great, Mom."

I was getting the board when the first drops hit me. In a flash, the ceiling trickle became a torrent. A huge section of plaster gave way. Mom tackled me, her body shielding mine. In the excitement, a candle toppled. The drapes caught fire.

We escaped injury, but our suitcases didn't. Everything was either scorched or soaked with rain and sodden ceiling. We'd spend the rest of the trip in Smiling Coconut t-shirts and flip-flops from the drugstore.

But first I needed my raincoat from the car. I found it, but left on the dome light. By morning, the battery was dead.

That afternoon, the sun finally appeared. "Goony Golf," I begged.

I holed-in-one, my ball disappearing into a pink dragon's mouth. We were having a great time—until my club flew out of my sunscreen-slick hands and hit my mom between the eyes.  She sank to the green carpet. Her shoulders shook. I was certain she was sobbing.

"I'm so sorry, Mom! Do you hate me?"

She raised her head.

"Hate you?" She was giggling, not crying. "Possum, I love you more than anything."

My throat got a lump. She hadn't called me 'possum' in forever.

"Rain. Fire. Injury." She was laughing harder now. "This is the worst vacation ever."

"Don't forget the tacky t-shirts," I spun like a model in coconut-head garb.

She wrapped me in her arms and we laughed together. And that's when I knew, sitting on that soggy 10th hole, that Mom and I would survive without Dad.

Many years later, I'd come to her Florida retirement community to reminisce about that summer. My ten-year-old daughter had a picture album on her lap. I sat on one side; Mom on the other. She was white-haired and growing older, but her smile was intact.

"This is our scorecard, honey. You can see I beat Grandma," I told my daughter.

"I was playing injured," Mom protested.

"Weren't you mad?" my daughter asked. "Everything went wrong that trip."

"No way, Possum," I said to my daughter, my eyes meeting my mom's. "It was our best vacation ever."

***

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