We are on the interstate, heading north to my parents' house to drop off Abby so we can go see the long-awaited Magnolia. But there is an accident up ahead. Way up ahead. So far up ahead I call it an accident because there's no other likely explanation for the sudden and complete halt. Cars are backed up for miles. We are stopped next to a large semi-trailer. Abby looks out the window, sees that I've stopped the car, and says, "What you doin', Daddy?"
"Well," I explain, "there's been an accident up ahead and we have to wait for them to clear the road off." I look at my watch; the movie starts in less than an hour.
"What you doin' Daddy?" Abby asks again. My first answer didn't quite cut it.
"Um, see, someone broke their car up ahead. It hit another car, and it got broken. And someone inside the car got hurt, got a boo-boo. So we have to wait here while they move the broken car out of the road and make sure the person with the boo-boo is okay."
"People hurt?"
"Maybe," I say. "We have to hope not. We just have to hope it's not too bad."
A few minutes later a wrecker with its flashing white lights zooms by us on the shoulder of the road. "What that?" Abby asks, pointing.
"That's a wrecker. He's gonna get the broken car and take it back to his place and fix it."
Abby looks over at the semi steaming and rumbling next to us. She touches the chill window with one of her fingers. "People got to get car fixed," she says.
Next an ambulance passes, its sirens turned off. If it had had its siren on Abby would have said, "Police car, go help people," because whenever we hear a siren at home I always explain it's a police car on its way to help someone. ("Help someone go to jail," Amy murmured once, and we both laughed, but, hey, there's a sort of big-picture truth to my explanation.) But since it has its sirens turned off Abby says, "What that?"
"They're going to help the person with the boo-boo. They're going to take that person to a doctor."
That seems to satisfy her for the moment.
We all sit in the car, not moving, worrying about the person up ahead with the boo-boo.
*****
Two nights later I'm heading toward my parents' house again. Mom and Dad are going on a cruise later this week and they want to have everyone over for dinner before they leave.
Amy is coming down with something and decided to stay home and rest.
On our way out the door a few minutes ago, Amy had been very clingy. "I love you. I'm going to miss you two. Please be careful, okay? I have a bad-"
"What?"
"Nothing. I have a bad feeling about you going, that's all. So just be careful, okay?"
I stared at her.
"I'm sorry," she said. "It's nothing. You're a good driver, you'll be fine.
"Jeez, maybe I shouldn't," I said, suddenly hesitant to leave. It occurred to me to call Mom and tell her we weren't coming, but I wasn't sure what I could say that wouldn't sound like anything more than a really lame excuse.
She hugged us both again before we left. I leaned down and kissed her belly, saying goodbye to Olivia, then came up and kissed Amy.
So now we're on our way to Mom's and Dad's and I'm extra careful driving, thinking of all the things that could go wrong. Abby is in the back seat tracking the moon, or trying to, but she keeps losing it for moments at a time, every time I make a turn. I explain to her, during those moments where she can't locate it, that it's we who are changing directions and losing it, not the reverse. The moon isn't hiding, I assure her.
So we make it to my parents' house safely, and we park in the street because the Neon's leaking oil and though Mom would never say anything to us I know the oil stains on the driveway bother her.
Dinner is pot roast, and it's delicious. Abby sits in a chair next to me, boosted up by a stack of big books Mom read to us when we were children. Shane my brother is here, as is Shane's daughter Cassidy. My sister Kristin is there as well. It visibly pleases Mom and Dad to have all three of their three children gathered here on a week-night.
When Abby looks down and sees that the top book on the stack she is sitting on has an illustration of Lowly the Worm on the cover, she exclaims, "Richard 'Carry!" She hops down off the seat and gets the book.
Mom leans over toward her and says, "I read that to your daddy when he was a little boy."
Abby smiles and points to me. "Daddy was a little boy?" Then, pointing her finger at me accusingly, she demands to know, "You were a little boy?"
"I was," I confess. "And do you know who my mommy was?"
She waits for my answer.
"It was Nana," I say, pointing at Mom. "Nana was my mommy. And Grandpa was my daddy."
Abby seems impressed and a little overwhelmed by this explanation. We all get caught up in the explanation. We like hearing it ourselves, it seems. Mom says, "And your Uncle Shane is my son, too. And Aunt Kristin." Kristin chimes in, "And your daddy is my brother. And I'm his sister."
After dinner, I ask my mom and sister if, hypothetically, they would ever cancel their plans at the last minute just because they had a bad feeling about it. They both say yes without hesitation. I tell them about how Amy had a bad feeling about our coming here tonight. Mom seems suddenly quite worried. She urges me to call Amy and make sure she's still okay.
"Hello?" Amy says groggily when I call.
"Just checking to make sure you're okay."
"You made it there safely?" she asks.
"Absolutely. How are you feeling?"
"About the same."
When I tell Mom that Amy's okay she says, "I never get little feelings, little intuitions like that, so when I hear someone else get them I take them seriously. One time, only one time have I had a bad feeling. Kristin had plans to go to a fair with your Uncle Jon once when she was twelve. The entire night before she was to leave I couldn't sleep a wink. So when I woke up the next morning I called Jon and canceled. And I urged him to think about not going himself. Well, he went ahead and went by himself anyway, and everything worked out okay. But, see, I had changed things a little bit. I had changed the situation by making Kristin stay at home. But that's really the only time I've ever had feelings of foreboding like that."
Kristin, a flight attendant, says, "I always told myself that if I woke up one morning and had a bad feeling about an upcoming flight I wouldn't go. Thank goodness I haven't yet. I'm not sure what I'd say when I called in."
Mom walks us down to our car in the street when we leave. I strap Abby in her car seat, then Mom leans down and kisses Abby on the forehead. She locks Abby's door, then closes it. We kiss and hug goodbye. I tell her to have a good time on her trip. She says she will. "Please promise me you'll drive slowly and carefully on the way home," she says.
*****
On the way home, Abby makes a series of little grunting noises, then says, "I burped."
"What do you say?" I ask.
"'Cuse me."
She fake-burps again. "I burped!"
"What do you say?"
"'Cuse me."
In bed, after I have read Abby a story, she cries a little, pretend-coughs, says she doesn't feel good. All part of her nightly ritual of Trying to Get Me to Stay in the Room Just a Little Longer. This is when I offer to sing her a song, or simply to talk to her a little bit about her day.
"Let's talk a little, want to?" I say.
She nods, smiles. She lies back down in bed and puts her thumb in her mouth.
I get her Pooh bear and snuggle it up to her. She grabs it, extends it toward me. "You be him," she says.
I take Pooh into my hand. I hold him up above her head, so she can see him.
"Hi," she says to him.
"Hi, how are you?"
"Good."
"What's your name?" I ask.
"Abby. What your name?"
"Pooh."
"You're not Pooh," she giggles. "You're a… pickle!"
"I'm not a pickle, crazy girl!"
This makes her laugh harder. "Are you a… fish-tick?"
"I'm not a fish-stick."
She looks around for more ideas. "Are you a… my closet?"
"I'm not a closet!"
Her voice is flirtatious, mirthful. "Are you a… balloon?"
"I'm not a balloon."
She gazes at her ceiling, where Amy arranged some glow-in-the-dark stars into nonexistent constellations several months ago. "Are you a… 'tar?"
"I'm not a star!"
"You're a red 'tar?" she asks.
"No, I'm not a red star."
And so it goes, this makeshift, innocent catechism of childhood. And it seems to me that this is some revolutionary intellectual step for Abby, something on another linguistic level altogether from where she was just a month ago. Because, while she has long mastered the art of giving objects their proper names, this is the first time she has displayed the imagination and whimsy necessary to give a name to something other than what it really is.
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