Free All Rivers Flow to the Sea by Alison McGhee Page B

was dusk in the Adirondacks that night. Ivy’s foot pumped the brake when the light blue truck began to slide toward us. She knew what to do and she did it. She pumped lightly and quickly, her foot in its black winter boot moving like a piston on the brake. The boy in the light blue truck was wearing brown work boots. He was from Remsen. It was only his third time alone in the truck. That’s what his mother told me.
    “Had I known what would happen,” she said, “I never would have let him go.”
    DUH,
I thought. It’s weird how sometimes part of your mind can be separate from the rest of you, and think things like
DUH.
    “Younger?”
    “William T.?”
    “How’s your driving coming along?”
    “It’s not.”
    “Well, it better. I got you an appointment for a road test.”
    “You what?”
    “You heard me.”
    “William T., I can’t take my road test yet. I don’t know how to drive!”
    “Learn, then. Because the appointment is three short weeks away. Get on it, Younger. Hop to it like the bird of the day — a greater yellowlegs sandpiper — would hop to it, trim and alert and dashing about in shallow waters.”
    I roll my eyes.
    “What?” William T. says. “You got something against sandpipers?”
    I turn back to the manual.
    “‘Chapter Eight: Defensive Driving,’” I read to Ivy.
    “Always drive defensively,” William T. agrees. “That is rule number one. Drive as if the other person is crazy. Or drunk. Expect the unexpected.”
    “What are you, the peanut gallery? I’m not reading this to you, William T. Go back to your sandpipers.”
    “I’m finished with sandpipers. On to pewees and tyrannulets, drab flycatchers that perch upright.”
    “‘Almost all drivers consider themselves good drivers,’” I read aloud.
    “But when you come right down to it, Younger, most of them are piss-poor drivers.”
    “‘To avoid making mistakes yourself or being involved in a traffic crash because of someone else’s mistake, learn to drive defensively.’”
    “Didn’t I tell you? Rule number one.”
    “No, you didn’t tell me. The manual told me. ‘The defensive driving rules are simple. Be prepared and look ahead. Maintain the proper speed. Signal before turning or changing lanes. Allow yourself space. Wear your seat belt. Do not drive if you are very tired, are on medication, or have been drinking alcoholic beverages. And finally, keep your vehicle in good operating condition.’”
    “‘Keep your vehicle in good operating condition,’” William T. repeats. “Excellent advice.”
    Excellent advice? William T.’s own truck is a mess. The passenger door doesn’t open; the heat doesn’t work; the horn mews; and even after you fill it up, the gas registers perpetually empty. I give him a look. He shrugs.
    “Do as I say, not as I do, Younger. Who the hell’s perfect? Not me.”
    Not me either.
    “The hell with the driver’s manual.”
    “Younger, did I just hear you curse?”
    “No. I would never curse.”
    “Younger, are you being sarcastic with me?”
    “No. I would never be sarcastic with you, William T. Nor would I be acerbic or mordant.”
    “
Mordant?
What the hell does
mordant
mean?”
    “I’ll tell you what
mordant
means if you tell me what the hell we’re doing here, William T.,” I say. “What the hell are we doing here with Ivy? In thirty years, will we still be here?”
    “I hope so,” William T. says. “I hope that thirty years hence, I will be sitting in the back seat of a car in good operating condition that my Younger will be driving defensively, and my Elder will be sitting up front next to her, and we’re looking back on this time and shaking our heads that we survived it all. That’s what I hope.”
    That’s the kind of thing that, once in a while when you least expect it, William T. says.
    “Driving is easy, Younger, and so is driving stick,” William T. says. “All you have to do is think like a truck.”
    We’re sitting in the truck in the