Chapter 22: Dad's List

Deirdre had never crossed a state line in her own truck.

She did it at Joplin, with both hands on the wheel of my SUV and her jaw set hard.

"Say something," she said.

"You're doing great."

"Not that. Something to make me stop thinking about the exit."

"There's a pie shop in four miles," I said. "My father marked it."

She drove the four miles in total silence.

Then she ate a slice of coconut cream at the counter with her eyes closed.

"This is the best thing I've ever eaten," she said.

"You've had a lot of chili."

"Chili is chili. This is a miracle."

In the back seat, behind her, rode her father's rule board.

She had insisted on bringing it.

It was leaned against my camera bag, face up, with the three painted rules in flaking white.

I had not asked why.

We reached the Texas panhandle on the sixth night.

The field outside Amarillo was flat and brown, and ten old Cadillacs stood in it with their noses buried in the dirt.

Their tails stuck up at the sky, thick with ten layers of spray paint.

A man sold cans out of a truck for five dollars.

Deirdre bought two.

"Which one?" I said.

"This one."

She walked up to a dented tailfin that was mostly pink.

She shook the can and stood there with it for a long time.

"My father died forty minutes from the county hospital," she said.

I stood still.

"He had chest pain in his truck, on the way to the grocery. I was behind the desk. By the time somebody called me, it was over."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Rules Bend, Just Not for Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.