MY DAD AND I GOT INTO A ROUTINE. WE’D GET UP really early
on Saturdays and Sundays for my driving lessons. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I guess I thought that maybe my dad and I would talk about stuff. But we didn’t. We talked about driving. It was all business. It was all about the learning-to-drive thing.
Dad was patient with me. He could explain things about driving a truck and his philosophy of paying attention and watching out for the other guy. He was actually a really good teacher, never got upset (except the time I brought up my brother). He said something once that really made me smile. “You can’t expect to go both ways when you’re driving on a one-way street.” I thought that was a funny and interesting thing to say. I laughed when he said it. He hardly ever made me laugh.
But he never asked me any questions about my life. Unlike my mom, he left me to my private world. My dad and I, we were like that Edward Hopper painting. Well almost—but not exactly. I noticed that somehow my dad seemed more relaxed with himself when he and I were out on those mornings. He seemed so at ease with himself, like he was at home. Even though he didn’t talk much, he didn’t seem as remote. That was nice. He sometimes whistled, like he was happy to be with me. Maybe my dad just didn’t need words to get by in the world. I wasn’t like that. Well, I was like that on the outside, pretending not to need words. But I wasn’t like that on the inside.
I’d figured something out about myself: on the inside, I wasn’t like my dad at all. On the inside I was more like Dante. That really scared me.
