something different

She drove slowly, carefully, glancing at her father in the seat next to her for clues. Yes, she knew where she was going, but she wasn't really sure it was the right place anymore. Something was always changing, and you never knew what it was going to be. If roads had changed during her absence, or if her father had moved again, she wanted to catch it from her father's look before she got too lost and had to find an explanation.

Each time she flew on a plane this happened. The changes. One or two things, usually, sometimes more. They could be big things, like Mike, or the could be small. The color of her bedroom walls. The name of her goldfish. Sometimes it was how streets fit together. Once, when she was a kid and just figuring it out, she went bike riding and got completely lost, lost in her hometown, where she had been bike riding millions and millions of times before. All because one road had become a dead end, and the other road she chose had a house where the next street should be.

But the trip went smoothly. Her father didn't get upset or confused at any of the turns she made, and when they finally pulled into the house she let out breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Of course there would be something different. There always was. It would be the last thing she expected. She tried to stop wondering about it, knowing it wouldn't change anything.