by Ingrid Ricks
I rolled down my window and shouted the words into the morning air. I’m sure I was a sight, flying down the freeway in a beat-up, pumpkin orange car, my duffle bag shoved behind me for support, the seat so low that my head was barely visible over the steering wheel, my left arm hanging out the window to ride the waves the air made as I sped down the road. I didn’t care. I was free and I could do anything I wanted and I was going to make the most of it.
I thought about my summer with Dad, which I had come to view in two distinct parts: Before His Arrest and After His Arrest. It felt like two separate worlds. Before his arrest, our summer had been just like any other summer we’d had together. Dad was my savior and my mentor and the person I depended on for my emotional survival. But on the day of his arrest―in the span of twelve hours―everything had changed.
I felt different now. I loved Dad as much as I had ever loved him, but there was a distance between us and I no longer counted on him to save me. I knew he felt the difference too. The last part of the summer he had been pulling away from me and moving toward Debbie. I didn’t mind. In fact I was glad that he had found someone else to spend time with.
I felt so much older now. I also felt strong and ready to get on with my life. For the first time in all the summers I had spent with Dad, I looked forward to getting home.
I thought about Heather and wondered what she had been doing while I was away. I couldn’t wait to get to see her and start my junior year of high school. A couple of weeks earlier, I had received a letter from Heather that Mom had forwarded to me. Heather had told me that there was an open spot in Crimson Colony, a singing group at our high school that I was desperate to get into. Maybe I had a chance.
School was starting in two days. I couldn’t believe it. Mom had registered me for classes because I wasn’t home, but we had discussed what I wanted to take over the phone.
The only bad part about going home was that Earl was still there. I hated it that after four years, he was still living in our house. Still unemployed. Still leeching off Mom. Still making life miserable for everyone around him. But I didn’t feel the same anxiety that always took hold of me when I returned home after a summer with Dad. Instead of the usual stomach cramps and throbbing headache, I felt clear, calm, and relaxed.
I wasn’t going to let Earl ruin my mood. He didn’t scare me anymore.
After a few hours on the road, I pulled off the freeway and headed to a 7-Eleven to fill up on gas and pick up a Sugar Free Dr Pepper and some chips. I spent a couple of minutes circling the parking lot, stretching my legs. Then I was off again.
I picked out another semi-truck to follow and pushed the car back up to seventy-five miles an hour. I was making great time and started thinking about the possibility of making it all the way home in one day.
So far, I had spent only nineteen dollars and I figured if I could skip out on a motel room, it would give me at least fifty dollars I could pocket. Besides, I could just imagine how surprised Dad would be when I told him I’d made it home in a single day.
When I hit Albuquerque, I pulled into the first truck stop I came across and dug out the atlas Dad had given me. I used my fingers to chart my path through the bottom quarter of Colorado into Utah.
I headed into the truck stop for a drink and bathroom break, and spent a few minutes in the truck stop trading post, admiring the rows of moccasins. I considered splurging and buying myself a pair, but they were thirty dollars and I knew I would be pushing it moneywise. I pulled away from the moccasins and glanced around at the truckers—paying for fuel, talking on the payphones, loading up on snacks. I might not have looked like them, but I felt like one of them. I understood why they lived their lives on the road. They were free.
I lingered for another fifteen minutes, watching the truckers come and go, and then decided to be on my way.
When I got back on the road again, I was in the mood for music and turned the radio knob. Nothing happened. The radio was dead. Dad’s wiring job must have given out. I didn’t care. I began humming whatever tune popped into my head.
After a while, my thoughts drifted to school. Homecoming was only a few weeks away and I wondered if I would get asked to go to the dance. I hoped so. It was the one dance that everyone wanted to go to, and if you didn’t get asked, it looked bad.
I pushed the car through Southern Colorado, enjoying the changing landscape around me. It had gone from flat and dusty in West Texas to hilly with beautiful red rocks that erupted from the ground. That’s what I loved about being out on the road. If you weren’t partial to your surroundings, you could just keep on going until you found a spot you liked. You didn’t have to stay in a place that made you unhappy.
I glanced at my watch. It was already 3 p.m. I couldn’t believe how fast the day was flying. I was nearing the Utah border and calculated that if I kept going, I could make it home by midnight.
I reminded myself that Dad had told me to check in with him at 4 p.m., but I was making such good time that I didn’t want to stop. I felt so free and energized and peaceful behind the wheel. I just wanted to keep driving.
I decided to surprise him with a call in a few hours, when I was closer to Logan. I knew he would be impressed when I told him how far I had made it.
The air was hot and at about five p.m., I began to get sleepy. I remembered Dad’s words and pulled over to a gas station. But instead of closing my eyes for a few minutes, I purchased a 44-ounce fountain drink of Sugar Free Dr Pepper and loaded it with ice. Then I pulled out a few ice cubes and stuck them down the back of my shirt the way Mom had so she could keep awake when she’d driven us out to Mississippi.
That refreshed me and I continued on with my drive. I was set on making it all the way home, but by the time I pulled into Price, Utah, it was nearly 8 p.m., and I was so wiped out that I decided maybe a motel room wasn’t such a bad idea. I was only four hours from Logan and could always get up early and make it there by mid-morning.
I drove through the streets of the old coal-mining town looking for the cheapest motel I could find. When I saw a sign advertising rooms for nineteen dollars and ninety-nine cents, I stopped. An old man was running the check-in desk. He seemed surprised when I asked him for a room and eyed me over suspiciously, but he didn’t say anything. He just pushed some paperwork before me, asked to see my driver’s license, took my money, and then handed me a key. I headed across the parking lot to my room. As soon as I was inside, I looked for a phone to call Dad. I realized there wasn’t one and headed back to the office.
“I need to call my dad,” I told the man. “Do you have a phone I can use?”
He looked me over again. “Is it long distance?”
“Yeah. But I can call collect.”
He reached under the counter and pulled out a black rotary phone. Then he stood and watched as I carefully dialed the numbers scribbled on the piece of paper Dad had given me that morning. I preferred a little privacy and looked at the man, hoping he would get the hint and move away but he just stared at me.
The operator connected me and the phone answered on the first ring. I heard Dad answer a quick, “yes” when she asked if he would accept the call.
“Ingrid?” Dad’s voice sounded tense
“Hi, Dad? How’s it going? Guess where I’m at?”
“Why the hell didn’t you call me at 4 p.m. like I told you to?” he thundered into the phone. “Do you realize that I’ve been worried sick all day about you? Your grandmother and Mom are beside themselves they’re so upset. I think they’re about ready to crucify me. I should have never let you do this. What the hell were you thinking, Ingrid?”
My joy was sapped in an instant. I felt my hands trembling and fought back the lump that was making its way into my throat.
“Sorry, Dad,” I mumbled into the phone. “I was just trying to surprise you. I thought I’d see if I could make it all the way to Logan.”
“I’ll say you surprised me!” he barked into the phone. “You almost gave me a he
art attack, that’s how surprised I am. When I said to call at 4 p.m., I meant 4 p.m. Can you just try to imagine how worried we’ve all been? We thought something horrible had happened to you!
“Do you know that ten minutes after you left, I realized I had made the worst mistake of my life? I started coming after you but I got a flat on the freeway. I called your grandma and she chewed me out and then called your mom, who completely freaked out on me. Everybody’s so angry and worried sick, you can’t believe it.”
My head was pounding and my body felt like lead. The adrenaline that had kept me going strong for the last sixteen hours was gone.
I glanced over at the old man, who tried to look busy scribbling something in his logbook. I knew he could hear Dad’s tirade.
“You can’t make it to Logan in one day!” he continued. “What in the hell were you thinking? And just how fast were you going anyway? Eighty miles an hour the whole way?”
I felt sick to my stomach. The last thing I’d expected was for Dad to be angry with me. I could see his point about not calling and I realized I should have done it. But I didn’t mean to upset him and I couldn’t believe he was so worked up. He knew I could take care of myself. It’s not like I hadn’t been in worse situations.
The mention of Mom really threw me off guard. All I needed was for her to be pissed off at me too. Plus, it completely blew my surprise plan. I had thought about timing my arrival so I would get home after church started. I was going to pull up to the house, stick on a dress, and head over to church in time for Sacrament meeting. I had been picturing the happy surprise on her face.
“Where are you at right now?” Dad demanded, his voice still full of fire.
“At a motel in Price,” I mumbled.
“Okay. I want you to get a room right this minute and I want you to promise me you will spend the night there. And in the morning, I want you to call me before you get on the road. Call me at 8 a.m. your time. And don’t try to pull any other surprises, either, because I’ll know whether you are calling from the motel or somewhere else in the morning.”
“Okay,” I said and then hung up the phone.
I dragged myself back across the parking lot, unlocked the door to my room, walked in, shut the door, attached the dead bolt, and flung myself onto the double bed. I was so deflated and tired I didn’t even have the energy to take off my clothes.
I awoke to pounding on my door. I looked through the peephole and saw the old man from the night before.
“Your dad is on the phone,” he yelled.
I glanced at the clock. It was 8:05 a.m.
“Okay, thanks. I’ll be right there,” I returned.
I quickly splashed water on my face to wake myself up, sprinted across the parking lot to the reception office, and picked up the receiver.
“Hi, Dad. Sorry, I just got up.”
“I thought you had tried to pull another surprise on me,” he said, his voice considerably calmer than the night before. “Good thing you didn’t, that’s all I can say.”
I hung up the phone, headed back to my room, and took a long shower. At this point, I had no reason to hurry, so I took my time dressing and even spent an hour flipping through the TV channels.
After a couple of hours, I checked out, filled up on gas, swung by a McDonald’s for an orange juice and sausage McMuffin, and then hit the road.
Since everyone was upset anyway, I decided I was going to savor the rest of my drive and I took my time getting to Logan. It was mid-afternoon when I pulled up to the house. Mom and Connie both came running out to meet me.
Connie had an impressed look on her face. Mom looked like she was ready to skin me alive.
“That was a stupid thing to do!” Mom spewed as soon as she got close to me. “You could have been killed. What were you thinking? Your dad should have known better than to let you go off like that.”
“Hi, Mom,” I said, offering her a half-hearted hug.
I turned to Connie, who was visiting for a few days before heading back to school in Southern Utah. She was already checking out her car.
“It drives great but you’ve got to push the red button in the glove box to start it,” I told her, tossing her the key. “And you’re going to have to do something about the seat and the radio because they’re both broken.”
I grabbed my duffle bag from the car, and then headed to my room, leaving Mom and Connie standing outside. Nobody got it. I had just wrapped up the best day and a half of my life.
I called Heather to tell her I was back in town and make plans for the next day. Then I unpacked and started combing through my closet for an outfit to wear for the first day of school.
I didn’t see Earl until dinner. We were sitting only three chairs apart, but neither of us acknowledged each other’s presence.
Mom didn’t say any more about my solo trip home and I didn’t bring it up either. But when Dad called around eight that evening to check in, his mood had done a one-eighty.
“So are you still alive after your mom got through chewing you out?” he said, chuckling into the phone. “I’ll tell you something, Ingrid. I’m glad I’m still alive. That was as close to a heart attack as I’ve ever had.”
I smiled, glad that he was back to being in a good mood.
“I know I should have called you, Dad. I didn’t mean to worry you. I just figured you would know I was fine.”
“I wasn’t worried about you,” Dad huffed into the phone. “I know you can take care of yourself. I was worried about the piece of shit car you were driving. That pile of junk could have broken down when you were out in the middle of nowhere and then what would you have done?
“Yeah, I don’t know how I let you talk me into that,” he continued. “I don’t think I’ll ever live that down with your mom or grandma. But since everything turned out fine, I guess I made the right decision. And I definitely know it’s one adventure you won’t ever forget.”
CHAPTER 17
SOAKING IN OUR iron claw foot tub had become a nightly ritual for me. With only one bathroom and six people, getting more than five minutes alone in there each morning was unthinkable. But by 9 p.m., everyone was in bed and I had the room to myself.
I submerged my head into the steaming water until only my eyes, nose, and mouth were uncovered, and settled into my thoughts. In the two weeks I had been home, life had gone smoothly—maybe because I had finally figured out what Connie had discovered when she was in high school: that there was a way to live in our house without really living there.
The secret was packing your day so full that you wouldn’t have time to be at home. Since starting school, I had managed to skip most of our morning scripture sessions by telling Mom I had to be at school for an early-morning study hour. After school, I either hung out with Heather or headed to the music room to practice for the upcoming music group tryouts. In the evenings, I could usually come up with some school game or booster club activity that I was supposed to participate in. And I had spent the two Saturdays I had been home walking through the mall with Heather collecting applications for a job. Along with earning spending money, I knew I needed steady income to cover my car insurance and gas once Dad brought up the Beetle.
I handled Earl like I did the year before; I pretended he didn’t exist. Except my new strategy was even better because I was barely home, so I hardly ever had to see him. Aside from the occasional morning scripture session I still attended, the only time I encountered Earl now was at dinner. But he usually stuffed down his frog legs and deer meat without badgering us—maybe because Mom had finally had enough.
Mom barely spoke to him when I was around and it was impossible not to feel the tension between them. In addition to his “man rules” antics, I knew she’d had all she could take of his lounging around the house and tinkering on an occasional car while she was pounding away forty to fifty hours a week trying to cover our expenses. We didn’t talk about her money stresses, but she was back to her old habit of sitting at the kitchen table
at nights with the bills spread across it, studying them and looking for something to skip.
Thinking about Mom made me sad so I switched my thoughts to school. I loved being back in high school and it was great not to be a sophomore anymore. Classes were going well and Heather and I spent every free moment we had together. And we both had been asked to Homecoming.
I started thinking about my car, replaying images of it in my mind. I worried about it sitting at the mechanic shop in Amarillo. What if someone stole it before Dad had the money to fix it? The last time Dad had called, he said he was still working on raising the eight hundred and fifty dollars to fix the engine.
“Believe me, I want you to have your car as bad as you do,” he had said into the phone, sensing my disappointment. “It’s just that business is a little slow right now. But I’m thinking I should be able to have it ready to bring up to you the first week in October. In fact, let’s just plan on that, okay?”
As I submerged myself in the old tub, water enveloped my body like a cocoon and I didn’t want to move. But the temperature had gone from steaming to lukewarm and my efforts to turn on the hot water faucet with my toes weren’t working. I reluctantly pulled my head out of the water and sat up.
The cold air that greeted me carried with it angry whispers from Mom’s bedroom. Our bathroom was sandwiched between her room and the kitchen, with doors leading to both, and the walls were so poorly insulated that it was usually impossible to block out the noise from the adjoining rooms. But Mom and Earl’s heated whispers jumbled their voices, making it difficult to decipher their words.
I forgot about needing hot water and strained my ears, hoping to catch the gist of their argument. About five minutes into their hissing match, I heard Earl say my name, though I couldn’t make out what he said next.
“Just leave her alone!” I heard Mom respond in a raised, angry voice.
Then I heard the sound that shot through my body like a bullet. It was the sound of a hand slapping flesh. The last noise I heard was a small yelp from Mom. Then I was out of my body, watching myself transform into the same Incredible Hulk character I had seen Dad morph into so many times when I was younger.