English to Russian Art/Literary Poetry & Literature

Early dawn. I wake up for a second to see we’re in the parking lot of some rest stop. I go back to sleep. A couple of hours later, I wake up for good and move to the front passenger seat.
The Volvo’s analog clock reads ten in the morning. Bright-blue early June morning as we cross the border out of Massachusetts to be welcomed by a big green sign with the word BIENVENUE and the state’s motto, LIVE FREE OR DIE. Our eleventh state is New Hampshire.
Live free or die. Are we free? Am I free? Running like this all the time. Worrying always about when the pattern will begin again.
“Welcome,” Mom says, catching me mouthing the words. “Bienvenue is French for ‘welcome.’”
“Kind of figured from the context, Mom,” I say, and shoot her a corner-of-my-lip smile. I’m not being smug. I’m trying to show I accept, and am willing to agree, that all is normal and regular as usual—so much so, we can do a happy-times teasing banter.