Mom was not allowed to test-drive the Piggy Bank Special before buying
it. The car lurched and stalled several times on the way home. It was
impossible to tell whether it was Mom's driving or whether we had
bought a lemon.
We kids were not all that thrilled about the idea of Mom driving us
cross-country. She didn't have a valid driver's license, for one thing, and
she'd always been a terrible driver. If Dad got too drunk, she ended up
behind the wheel, but cars never seemed to run right for Mom. Once we
were driving through downtown Phoenix and she couldn't get the brakes
to work and she had Brian and me stick our heads out the windows and
scream, "No brakes! No brakes!" as we rolled through intersections and
she looked for something relatively soft to crash into. We ended up
plowing into a Dumpster behind a supermarket and walking home.
Mom said that anyone critical of her driving could help with the task.
Now that we had a car, she continued, we could leave the next morning.
It was October, and we had been in school for just over a month, but
Mom said we had no time to tell our teachers we were withdrawing or to
get any of our school records. When we enrolled in West Virginia, she'd
vouch for our scholastic achievement, and once our new teachers heard
us read, they'd realize we were all gifted.
Dad was still refusing to come with us. When we left, he said, he was
going to head out into the desert on his own, to become a prospector. I
asked Mom if we were going to sell the house on North Third Street or
rent it out. "Neither," she said. "It's my house." She explained that it was
nice to own something for a change, and she saw no point in selling it
just because we were moving. She didn't want to rent it, either, since she
was opposed to anyone else living in her house. We'd leave it as it was.
To prevent burglars and vandals from breaking in, we'd hang laundry on
the clothesline and put dirty dishes in the sink. That way, Mom pointed
out, potential intruders would think the house was occupied and would
be fooled into believing that the people who lived there might come