Replacing Dad. Shelley Fraser Mickle
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‘’Socrates is an old fart,” he said.
I sat in the back, watching the back of his head. Maybe I’d be a better person if I had plenty of money and understood electricity. And for certain if I ever won the lottery, I’d have to give it all away to the Child Abuse Society.
Just before the main intersection in Palm Key, Drew turned right and headed to the First (and only) Palm Key Methodist Church. From a block away, we could see Mandy sitting on the top of the concrete steps. The car lights lit her up, and the church porch lights threw a circle behind her. Her little body in her new green Girl Scout uniform (she had just flown up from Brownies) looked so lonely that I had to swallow. Of all my children, Mandy is the most like me. She has George the First’s blond hair and his nose. But her eagerness to please, her desire for a world where there is only peace, no pain, and for all eggs to be laid golden, without a whiff of rot, is—up and down and all over—me.
Behind her, Mrs. Farrigut, who was up for the Volunteer of the Year Award and had won it for the last five years, and who was now also the scout leader, stood guard over Mandy. I leaned out of the window, ‘’Thanks for staying with her.”
“No problem.” Mrs. Farrigut patted Mandy on the back. “I just had to call and cancel a dental appointment and tell Fred to pick up some fast food and reschedule my Blood Drive meeting. But I wouldn’t have left one of my girls here alone for anything in the world.”
“Sorry,” I said.
Mandy got in the back beside me and handed me a potholder woven out of fat tubes of yarn.
“Why’re you so late?” She had an edge of complaint in her voice that I’d noticed when she started the sixth grade.
“It took a long time for Drew to get his permit.”
“So, he bombed it.”
“No.”
Drew was pulling into the church parking lot to turn around. “What else would you call it?” he asked.
“I didn’t know he bombed it.” George the Second looked at Drew. “You didn’t tell me you bombed it.”
“He didn’t,” I said. “Except for a while. And it’s not what you need to tell anybody, anyway.”
“Yeah, I had to take it three times,” Drew added. “A lot of people do,” I said. “Your own father had to take it five times.” Mandy and George turned to look at me, and Drew would have, but he was too busy pulling the car into a vacant place and backing out headed in a new direction.
“He did?” George asked. “Did he really?” Drew added. And then Mandy: “I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s the truth. Ask him,” I said. One of my favorite pastimes had become pinning a less-than-perfect past on George and then enjoying imagining him getting out of it in front of the kids.
Mandy leaned against me. I could feel the tiny little swellings of her breasts as she pressed against my arm. In the last few weeks, her body had begun to change, her breasts becoming about the size of infected mosquito bites. And they seemed as foreign to her as my own had become to George the First.
About a dozen cars were lined up at the stoplight at the main intersection in Palm Key.Drew put on his left blinker, so he could turn toward our house. There was no green arrow at this light. Palm Key would never get so busy or complicated to add that. It was just a plain old light, three colors, and half the time even turned off. But today there was too much traffic for it not to be on: too many tourists, bumper to bumper, coming toward us. “Go ahead, inch out,” I said to Drew. I pointed. ‘’That’s right, just sit here under the light and, when you get a chance, turn.”
But the line of traffic was so long, he didn’t get to turn before the light changed.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just put it in reverse and back out of the intersection. We’ll be first in line when the light changes again.”
“Wuss,” George said. “Shut up, George,” said Drew. His ears were red. “It’s all right, Drew,” I said, patting his shoulder. “We all have to remember that George is only four.” “May not live to five,” Mandy said.
I pointed as the light turned. None of us knew it, but Drew had left the gear in reverse. So when he put his foot down on the accelerator, we knocked the hell out of whoever was behind us. And ourselves. I sat up, grabbing my head, my neck still wobbling.
Smoke was oozing out of the hood of the car behind us. George was bracing himself against the dashboard. Drew looked sick. It was a good thing we’d all been wearing seat belts.
The car behind us was an old Mercedes, and in the streetlights overhead I could see that it was humped and rounded, probably more than twenty years old. Its grill was now mashed back into itself like the mouth of a fish.
“God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Mom.” Drew opened the car door to get out. “God, why did it have to be a Mercedes?”
I unbuckled myself, then checked George and Mandy to see if they were really all right.
“Boy, you sure hit the fart, Drew. I mean you really hit the fart!”
Drew was standing beside our car. Smoke was coming up out of the one we’d hit, and we could hear the Palm Key fire siren. The station was only half a block away.
Mandy walked up to the man who was getting out of the Mercedes, and she stood beside him while he, too, stood looking at the front of his car. He was really tall. That was nearly all I thought about. And that we hadn’t killed him. Or maimed him. In fact, he seemed fine. Long blond hair, a good way over his collar in back, and a mustache. And then I realized that I knew who he was. Last week his picture had been in the Palm Key paper. He was the new and only physician Palm Key had. The one the town council had recruited. And they’d had a pretty hard time getting some doctor to come to Palm Key, too.
I went over closer to him. “How bad do you think it is?” He looked down at me, then back at his car. “Oh, I don’t think it’s too serious. The smoke makes it look bad.”
“I know you’re upset.” I was staring at the Mercedes. Mandy moved next to me and, even though I thought she’d outgrown this, she reached over and held a fistful of my skirt. ‘’This is obviously a fine car,” I said, my voice running on, fast. “Being so old, it’s probably worth a lot—at least to you. It’s probably real valuable and you love it. And, well, my son, Drew, he just got his learner’s permit. I mean, really just got it—this afternoon.”
“He failed the test two times,” Mandy added.
“And I wonder,” I went on, “do you think we could just not make too big a deal out of this? You know, it might really blow his confidence. I’d really appreciate it.”
I was sounding great. But when I came to the last part of my speech, my voice cracked. I was telling myself; You cry, sister, and you won’t see another sunrise. I switched glasses again, reaching in my pocket, and getting out the dark ones.
He stood there, listening to everything I said. Then he looked back at his car. We both did, just stood there and stared. In a few minutes, he walked toward it. ‘’Why don’t I see if it’ll start?” He got in, and the firemen surrounded it.
“Aren’t you afraid it’ll blow up?” I followed him to the car as he opened the door. Mandy was practically riding my feet. I was ready, though, to run back at the first sound of a pop, throw my body across Mandy, Drew, and George the Second.
The firemen raised the hood and were looking down in it, holding fire extinguishers. Drew was hanging onto George by the hand, just standing there in the middle of the street like he was about to be hanged. The whole town seemed to be watching us. A fireman squirted something into the hood, and the car hissed and the smoke stopped. The new doctor was grinding the motor, and then it caught.
By then the editor of the Palm Key Sentinel