Inevitable and Only(2)

“Tut, tut. Not a very good example to set for our new driver here,” Dad said, dropping a kiss on my mother’s head. “You’d better rest up tonight, milady. Pamper thyself.”

You’d have to know my dad’s voices as well as I do to have recognized the barb in his tone.

To me, he said, “Tis hatch’d and shall be so!” and I grinned, because it was a quote from The Taming of the Shrew, which we’d seen back in April at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC. Last week we’d gone to Much Ado About Nothing. Dad was thrilled that I’d signed up for drama class this year—I finally had room in my schedule for electives. He’d started collecting secondhand pocket editions of all the Shakespeare plays for me whenever he had extra copies at the bookshop.

I scooped up the car keys from the blue bowl on the counter, tossed them to Dad, and danced to the door.

Dad got into the driver’s seat of our ancient Honda Accord and reached over to unlock the passenger’s side door for me. Once upon a time, the car was some shade of red. But the roof had been painted blue, the hood was now purple, and the bumpers were green. The doors were still their original color but had faded to a pinkish brick red and had been covered with little white stars, which is why Dad dubbed it the Commie Comet. He and Mom had plastered it in so many bumper stickers—which said things like ARMS ARE FOR HUGGING and EVERY MOTHER IS A WORKING WOMAN and QUESTION CONSUMPTION and JESUS WAS A LIBERAL—you could barely see the color of the car underneath anyway.

That was one thing that made me think maybe there was still hope we could get the old Mom back: she didn’t insist on painting over all the stickers when she got the job at Fern Grove Friends School. She bought herself a wardrobe of business suits and high heels, cut off her long hair, and started wearing makeup, but she kept driving the Commie Comet just the way it was. Then again, most of the other cars in the parking lot at Friends look similar to ours. Of all the academic jobs out there, managing a Quaker school must be the crunchiest.

Dad drove up Elm Avenue to the ShopRite at the corner of University Parkway. This late at night, the parking lot was deserted, just as I’d known it would be. We pulled into a spot in the middle of the lot, under a flickering streetlight, and Dad turned the ignition off and unbuckled his seat belt.

“All right, he said, albeit dubiously.” Dad loves to narrate himself, especially when it involves using adverbs. “Have at it, youngster.”

I flew around to the driver’s side and waited for him to get out (have I mentioned that patience isn’t my strong suit?), then slid into the driver’s seat, scooted it forward so I could reach the pedals, and adjusted the mirrors. I touched the steering wheel, the gearshift. Dad buckled himself into the passenger seat and said (in his normal Weatherman Voice, which meant that he was more nervous than he was letting on), “I’d suggest we begin by turning on the car.”

We drove around that parking lot for close to an hour. Very slowly. I learned how to ease off the gas pedal and transfer my foot to the brake without jerking the car. How to check all my mirrors before changing into an imaginary left lane, an imaginary right lane. How to twist the wheel ever so slightly to a position that would make the car turn in a graceful wide circle, not a tight corkscrew.

“Do you want to drive home?” Dad asked, finally. “There’s no traffic on Elm this time of night. I’m fine with it if you are.”

This is one of the many things I love about my dad. He trusts me. Trusts that I know how to make good decisions.

“Yes!” I said, pumping my fist.

“Mirrors,” Dad reminded me, as I turned out of the parking lot.

I kept the speedometer needle at 10 as the car bumped along Elm. It’s a hilly road, cresting slightly at every cross street and then rolling down a gentle slope to the next one. We passed 39th Street, then 38th.

“Now, as you reach the top of a hill,” Dad said, “you always want to slow down slightly. You never know what might be coming up the other side.”

We rolled downhill from 38th and I pressed the brake lightly to keep the needle at 10, then transitioned my foot over to the gas pedal to climb the next hill.

“Like right now,” Dad said, “you want to ease off the gas right about—”

Something blurred across the road as I reached 37th Street.

THUNK.

I stomped on the brake and screamed.

Dad shot out of the car and I sat there, frozen, my foot glued to the brake, until he banged on my window.

“Put it in park!” he was yelling. I shifted the gear into park, then he yanked the door open. “Let me back it up.”

So I stood on the sidewalk while my father rolled the car off the cat I had just run over.

I couldn’t look away. Where the front tire had been, there was a dark pile of fur with a darker pool of liquid forming around it. It was glistening faintly in the light from the nearest streetlamp, but it wasn’t moving. Not a twitch. I was sobbing and screaming and I didn’t realize what I was saying at first, until I’d said it over and over again, and finally Dad put his hands on my shoulders and said, “Yes, Cadie, honey, I know you’re a vegetarian. Cadie, Cadie, take a deep breath.”

He crouched to examine the situation, then took his phone out of his pocket and made a quick call. After he hung up, he walked over to me, his face pale, and put his arms around me. “Sweetie. You were driving entirely responsibly. It was an accident.” Weatherman Voice. Serious Dad.