gleaming chrome bumpers slowed down and pulled onto the shoulder in
front of us. A lady with a beauty-parlor hairdo rolled down the window.
"You poor people!" she exclaimed. "Are you okay?"
She asked us where we were going, and when we told her Phoenix, she
offered us a ride. The air-conditioning in the Buick was so cold that
goose bumps popped up on my arms and legs. The lady had Lori and me
pass around Coca-Colas and sandwiches from a cooler in the foot well.
Dad said he wasn't hungry.
The lady kept talking about how her daughter had been driving down the
highway and had seen us and, when she got to the lady's house, had told
her about this poor family walking along the side of the road. "And I said
to her, I said to my daughter, 'Why, I can't leave those poor people out
there.' I told my daughter, 'Those poor kids must be dying of thirst, poor
things.'"
"We're not poor," I said. She had used that word one too many times.
"Of course you're not," the lady quickly replied. "I didn't mean it that
way."
But I could tell that she had. The lady grew quiet, and for the rest of the
trip, no one said much. As soon as she dropped us off, Dad disappeared. I
waited on the front steps until bedtime, but he didn't come home.
THREE DAYS LATER, while Lori and I were sitting at Grandma's old
upright piano trying to teach each other to play, we heard heavy, uneven
footsteps at the front door. We turned and saw Dad. He tripped on the
coffee table. When we tried to help him, he cursed and lurched at us,
swinging his fist. He wanted to know where that goddamn sorry-assed