Bicentennial Summer

Dad returned with a—could it be embarrassed?—grin. I doubted it. Before getting into the car, he also took a huge swig of the water. After filling up Blue Pierre’s radiator with the same water, he found a washcloth in the back, wet it, and passed it along with the tote of the medicines and bottles to me. “Here, Mare. Take care of yourself. Wipe your face and body down. Take your medicine and dose up.”

It was funny, my reaction. Dad’s empathy was so hard to come by that when I finally got ahold of a taste of it, I felt like I could cry all over again. Why couldn’t he just be good? Was it really so hard for him to just be good?

I was glad to take some orders and wash my tear-streaked face and the dust from the patches of rashes. I tried not to scratch the itch with the cloth, but boy, was it tempting. I popped out two pills, one antibiotic and one antihistamine, and downed them with a cup of hot grape Kool-Aid.

As I started applying some of the greasy ungüento, Dad asked Jill to pass him the map. “Looks like we’re not on our TripTik course anymore. Let’s see which route is the best way out of here.” He rubbed his hands, spread out the map, then folded it neatly into the square we needed.