Chapter 4: Slow Leak

On Saturday I drove to Hermantown first, with the left rear tire riding low.

I stood in the Finnish cemetery in the blowing snow with my glove on the cold stone of the family niche.

My mother and father sit there side by side in a small bronze box.

I told them what I tell them every week, that I was fine.

Then I drove out to Proctor.

Andy's clinic was a long steel barn on a hobby farm, with a gravel yard and a frozen stock pond.

A ring of black-and-white cattle stood in the yard with their breath smoking.

Andy came out of the barn wiping his hands on a rag.

He was grinning before I had the car door open.

"Two Sugars, in daylight," he said.

"Somebody alert the county."

"Don't make me turn around," I said.

"Give me your keys.

"I'll have it done before you finish complaining."

He jacked up the Subaru in the yard and knelt by the left rear wheel.

I stood with my arms folded in my parka and watched his sandy head bent over the rim.

He had a gentle way with tools, and I liked watching him work.

"There it is," he said, and held up the little black cap off the valve stem.

"Loose as a tooth.

"It's been seeping since Tuesday, like I said."

"You said Tuesday?" I asked.

"You told me the light came on Tuesday."

I had no memory of telling him that.

I let it go, because he was already pumping air into the tire with a hand compressor.