I know it's reckless to put a baby in the front seat, but the boosters are all in the third row and they're kind of hard to get to and to buckle just right. It takes time and I am in a hurry because of the ambulance siren in the distance and when there is an ambulance in this janky town there is also a big fire truck that comes too, for some reason. I'm sure there will eventually be deputies. The fire truck thing is weird. If you stub your toe and call 911 a fire truck will come with the ambulance. I'm not going to criticize something I don't understand especially because all those people were pretty nice when my mom got her head cracked in the car accident. Not like the deputies who tried to act tough.
I've got the Pantenella's Dodge Caravan up to sixty-five, kick the brakes, take arrowhead, tach out the motor, swing right onto Carmine, head for home. Let's face it, it was never the greatest place to live. A lot of people will judge you for living in a mobile home, but inside it's just like a house, we've got drywall and my mom was pretty classy, decorated it like Martha Stewart. Baby Jessica is taking things in stride, not crying or acting fussy, just sliding a little in her seat when I take the corners. I've got my eye on her. She does kind of spit up some clear water, probably car sick. I wipe it up with a fast-food napkin while I am driving down my old street doing thirty-five in reverse. I was so distracted by watching Baby Jessica that I missed a turn and I've got the headlights off now, so I don't draw attention to myself. I'm pretty good at driving backwards, but I have a problem with parallel parking. It's a skill I need to work on if I'm going to be driving in the city.
It never really was our house. We didn't own it or anything. Now a young couple without any kids live there. I see them working in the yard when I come to visit Sara. I get that houses don't just crumble when their people die, but they should. It's not right that they just open their doors to some stranger who uses them every which way like we never existed.
I double park in front of Sara's dad's Mustang. It's pretty cool. Sara's dad is pretty agro and it is hard to find a way to be around him that doesn't make me feel small, but he has a cool car. That means a lot, I think. A guy might be a terrible person, but if he has a big truck or a fast car people will give him respect. My dad had that stupid minivan and I think that made people know he was weak.
But maybe that was just a trick, the magic, the secondary layer that most people don't get to see. Life has layers, I know that. For instance, you might think an old beat-up canoe is a piece of junk just sitting in someone's back yard. But my father found his canoe a few years ago when he went out looking for one of his buddies that tried to go down the Carson River in April after a real wet winter. The river had class four rapids and this guy got swamped. They never found his body, must still be out there pinned in the water under a fallen trunk or something. But my pops understood that there is power in a dead man's boat. He found it and brought it home. He felt bad about never telling the family, but it wouldn't have done them any good. And pops said it took him back and forth to the other world a few times. That's why I'm here. I've got to get that canoe strapped to the top of the caravan. It's still behind our old shed. I'm hoping that the new people haven't gotten around to getting rid of it yet. And that's all that life is, hope. Hope. That's the most important thing. People say it all the time.
I text Sara and tell her what I'm up to. I can see the light on in her dad's room but her's is still off, so she's probably passed out. It would be a lot easier if I could get her help, but I don't have a lot of time. The new people don't have a dog but everyone else does and they are all barking. They do that all the time though. Every dog in the neighborhood loses it whenever another dog steps foot on the street. It's so common that people kind of ignore it for the most part. Still, it is a little freaky to have all the dogs going crazy trying to let their owners know something is up. A guy a couple doors down is cussing out his dog, and across the street I hear another door slam shut. Probably I am going to be seen. The false dawn will start soon, the air is super crisp. I close the metal gate and drop the frosty latch. The grass has a crunch under my shoes. I move quick, trace the fence line down, past the overgrown concord grapes my mother planted and no one likes but me. Past the flimsy tool shed that I had to paint a few years back, its already looking like it needs another coat. I didn't scrape the frame on the door very well and it is peeled pretty bad. I mean if I can see the mistake in this light the new people probably notice it all the time. That's a problem I have; I notice my mistakes a lot, but I notice other people's mistakes even more.
