Run for the Hills

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

M ad was moving into uncharted territory. In terms of geography, she realized she was the only one who was new to the western part of the United States. Pep had been to Salt Lake in 2004 when they played the Lady Utes. Rube had been to the same city on his first book tour. They had both been to California multiple times. They most likely could not count the number of times they had been on a plane. Their work made travel necessary, while Mad could barely imagine an overnight trip to Nashville, the amount of planning and worry rendering the whole enterprise not worth the effort. And, yet, here she was in the PT Cruiser, with her brother and sister, and the number of times that she had the urge to jump out of the moving car had lessened considerably in the last few hours.

Rube and Mad had been chastened by how Pep had regarded them with incredulity about their plan to simply show up in Utah and ask to see a child. In their defense, the plan had been working (weren’t all three of them in the PT Cruiser at this very moment?), so they hadn’t realized the need to adjust in order to account for the variations of their circumstances. For instance, their sibling was a child, a minor. He was young enough to be the son of either Rube or, Mad shuddered to realize, herself. This was the unintended consequence of their father’s continual reinvention. By the time they discovered their father somewhere in California, they would not look like a group of siblings. They would look like a nuclear family, with Rube as the dad and Mad as the mom and Pep and this boy their children. And their father, Mad realized, would look like their grandfather. She imagined all of them sitting for a portrait at the JCPenney, the resulting image, in a gold frame, confusing every single person who looked at it.

The boy that they hoped to meet, hopefully without accruing some strange criminal charges that would hamper their desire to enter into new careers if they followed in their father’s footsteps, was named Theron, and he was a fifth-grader at Beacon Heights Elementary. That was pretty much all the information that they had, and it was embarrassingly comforting to Mad to know that she was not the least famous sibling in the family. Theron was not the youngest brain surgeon in America or the star of a TV show about the youngest brain surgeon in America or even just in med school studying brain surgery. Yes, she’d had a twenty-one-year head start, but she had definitely accomplished more than little Theron. He was just a regular kid in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Mad was not going to be intimidated by him.

A FEW DAYS EARLIER, IN A HOTEL ROOM IN ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, THE three of them listened on speaker as Pep called the number provided by Rube’s private detective in order to speak to Trista Goudy, a thirty-five-year-old woman who had been their father’s fourth partner. Trista Goudy was the anchor for Good Morning, Utah for KTVX, Channel 4 in Salt Lake City. There was an image from a local magazine that the detective had included in the materials, and Trista was blonde and put together in the way that all people who spend a lot of time in front of cameras must be. She was wearing a pearl necklace that looked like it had fifteen layers to it, just a ridiculously ostentatious piece of jewelry, and her eyes were disconcertingly wide open. Perhaps it translated more effectively if you were looking at her while she was seated behind an ostentatious desk that looked like a sci-fi movie and she was talking about a gunman on the loose in the early hours of the morning.

“Goudy residence,” a child’s voice said.

“Oh, god,” Pep replied, looking frantically at Mad and Rube.

“Hello?” the voice said. “Who’s there?”

“This is Pep—Patsy, excuse me. This is Patsy Kleinfeld, and I’m looking for your mom. Or, like, Trista Goudy? I’m trying to get in touch with Trista Goudy.”

“Oh, okay,” the voice said. Pep balled her hands into fists, so exasperated with herself for getting rattled, but then she relaxed.

“Hello,” a voice said, and it was clearly Trista.

“Hi, yes, hello,” Pep said. “Is this Trista Goudy?”

“Are you selling something, or, like, is there a problem?” Trista asked.

Pep looked at Mad and Rube and shook her head, defeated, realizing that, despite her earlier confidence, there was no good way to do this.

“My name is Pepper Hill, and I’m calling because my father was Chip Hill. Or maybe you knew him as Charles Hill or Chuck Hill or something like that. But, anyways, he was my dad and he left our family. And he ended up with you.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Trista replied. “He’s not here. He left a few years ago. And I’m not sure where he is.”

“Oh, no, we know that. He left you,” Pep said, nodding, but Trista’s voice took on a strange tone as she replied, “Well, no, not really. I left him. How old are you?”

“I’m an adult,” Pep replied, her voice cracking just the slightest bit. “I’m twenty-one.”

“Oh, okay,” Trista said. “Well, your dad and I were together, but it didn’t work out. I did not know about you, I promise. And, look, I’m so sorry, but this is a lot to do over the phone, and I was actually about to head to an appointment. Do you want to leave me your number? Would you like to talk about this? Or did you just want me to know?”

“I have two other siblings,” Pep said. “From earlier families. My dad, I mean. He had a bunch of kids. We all have different moms. Um, it’s harder to explain than I thought it would be. They’re actually here with me.”

“Hi!” Rube said. “Sorry, I know this is awkward.”

“Yes! It is,” Trista said, her voice beginning to show signs of irritation or suspicion. Up to this point, she had been doing a good job of managing the situation.

“And you have a son,” Pep said.

“Tom,” Trista replied.

Mad wondered why you’d even saddle a kid with a weird name like Theron and then just start calling him Tom. Like, name him Thomas, right? Though perhaps Trista had demanded Theron. Maybe it was a very popular Mormon name or something, not that Trista was Mormon, or there was no evidence other than the fact that she lived in Utah. The point was, Mad realized, maybe the moms picked the names and their dad amended them to something he liked more. She should ask her mom. Why had she not asked her mom a very simple question like, “Hey, is Madeline a common name in your family, Mom? What is the origin of my name, Mom?” Why did she not ask? Why did she not want to know everything about herself, how she was made?

“Wait, how do you know this?” Trista continued.

“We’ve been searching for our father,” Rube said. “It’s not been easy, but I’ve managed to find out more information about him, which is how I found out about you and Tom.”

“Because Tom’s dad is also our dad,” Pep continued.

There was silence, and Mad realized how suspicious this would seem, to randomly call someone and mention the name of their child. She thought Trista might hang up at any moment.

“Could we meet with you?” Mad asked suddenly.

“Is that another one of you?” Trista asked, and they had her back.

“Yes, sorry. But that’s it. There are three of us here.”

“And we’re driving across the country,” Pep continued.

“We’re in New Mexico,” Rube said. “I started in Boston, which is where our dad started his own life. And I picked up Mad in Tennessee and then Pep was in Oklahoma.”

“Wow, that’s a long way to come,” Trista admitted.

“And he’s in California,” Rube said, “if you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t,” Trista admitted. “Well, okay, if you have been driving across the country, I feel like I can’t stop you. You’re not going to make trouble, are you? I know it may not seem like a huge deal to you, but I’m a well-known person in Salt Lake City, and I have worked hard to build this life and achieve these things, and I don’t want a bunch of Carl’s children showing up and making a big scene.”

“Carl?” Mad asked.

“Yes, Carl Hill.”

“We’re not going to make a scene,” Pep replied. “We just want to talk to you and get some information, and we’d like to meet Tom.”

“Well, I’d have to ask Tom. He is very much an independent-minded person, and he would have to agree to that. I try to let Tom kind of determine his own path, because—it’s complicated—but I let other people guide my life when I was a kid and it did not go well. Why don’t you leave me your number, and I will be in touch once Tom has made a decision.”

“Thank you, Trista,” Rube said. “This is all very reasonable and we’re so grateful.” He gave Trista his phone number and she wrote it down.

“Safe travels,” Trista replied, and then she hung up.

Pep looked at Mad and Rube, shaking her head. “I did a bad job, didn’t I?”

Rube shook his head. “You did great!” he said. “We got what we wanted, didn’t we? Don’t worry about the execution, okay? Worry about the result, and the result is that we get to meet our brother.”

“Maybe,” Mad offered. “He has to decide.”

“How do you not worry about the execution?” Pep interrupted, still thinking about Rube’s comment. “I actually don’t think the end result matters as much as the execution.”

“Pep?” Rube said, still smiling. “I’m just trying to make you feel better because you seem a little shaken up by the phone call. You said your name was Patsy Kleinfeld. I didn’t want to make a big deal about it.”

“If you start a new life,” Mad offered, “you could be Patsy Kleinfeld.”

Pep frowned. They were all getting accustomed to having siblings who might gently tease you in order to make you feel better. Mad was getting accustomed to saying anything that might be playful. They’d figure it out. They still had a long way to go. By the time they made it to the Pacific Ocean, they’d have so many inside jokes and complicated handshakes that their dad would be terrified of them.

MANAGING FOOD PREFERENCES WAS DIFFICULT. MAD WAS NOT USED TO EAT ing anything that she hadn’t made herself, and most of it things she had grown. And Rube ate at a rotating set of familiar restaurants for almost every single meal back in Boston. Pep, on the other hand, who would one day inherit an obscene number of Sonic fast-food franchises, seemed to exist entirely on food that was prepared in under sixty seconds. Gas station breaks consisted of Mad deciding between a brown banana or a five-dollar package of unsalted almonds, while Rube bought things that required two hands, fancy cups of yogurt or packages of hummus with a separate compartment of pretzels, so that the two women had to sit in the PT Cruiser while he fastidiously enjoyed his expensive snacks because Mad and Pep were still not allowed to drive the PT Cruiser. Pep, on the other hand, walked out of the gas station with multiple bags of Skittles and every single item that had spent its time in the store spinning on metal rollers. If they stopped for a meal, Mad voted for barbecue, because she was interested in the brisket and sausages out west, felt like it was a meal that someone invested time and effort into making, while Rube wanted an eclectic café, and Pep always voted for Sonic, though she admitted that there weren’t as many this far west. So they rotated. Mad worried that if the child somehow joined the expedition, it would delay her own food choice by one extra meal. When your whole world consisted of a retro-styled compact car increasingly populated by your previously unknown half siblings, traveling further and further into uncharted territory, you relied on anything that kept you tethered to the person you had once been. And for Mad, in this moment, it was eating some kind of meat that had smoked for hours and hoping that the restaurant made their own coleslaw. She did admit, however, that Sonic had amazing drinks, strange soda combinations with tiny bits of crushed ice and cherries and slices of lime tossed in. And sometimes, yes, it was nice to eat a congealed salad served by a very old lady. You could expand your horizons as long as you occasionally got to run right back to the only thing you really knew.

AS DUSK SETTLED AROUND THE PT CRUISER, HAVING MADE IT THROUGH THE traffic of Albuquerque, Mad suggested that they stop for the night. Pep had been reading Rube’s second novel, having deemed the first one to be satisfying, but she was now asleep in the backseat. Rube focused on the road, but Mad’s suggestion had made him involuntarily yawn.

“We’re making such good time, though,” Rube told her. “I feel like we should keep driving.”

“We’ve been in the car for so long, Rube,” Mad said, but she could see a flicker of irritation from him.

“Let’s just keep going. It’s about two hundred miles to Durango, in Colorado, and then we’re basically a day’s drive to Salt Lake. I just want to get there. You can go to sleep, I’ll listen to the radio.”

“I’ll stay up,” she said. Her legs ached, and even sharing an uncomfortable hotel bed with a sister she barely knew was preferable to being stuck in the PT Cruiser. But she understood Rube’s need to keep moving. The closer they got to the end, the harder it was to wait. They had spent most of their lives without their father and now they were as close as they had been to him since he left. They didn’t want to lose him now.

She watched the highway, the constant movement. She tried to place Coalfield in her mind, to think of the roads they had taken to get to this very point, retracing her movements, and it instantly made her fall asleep, the sheer distance she had traveled in this passenger seat, fixed in place, getting closer and closer to her father.

A WRECK WAS THE WORST WAY TO WAKE UP. OR, NO, THE WORST WAY TO wake up was seconds before a wreck. You have time to tense your body, realize you might die, and then you hit something. This was how Mad was waking up right now, violently shifting in her seat with the sound of her brother saying, “Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit, shiiiiiiiiiiii—” And then Mad sitting up, the seat belt restricting her with such force, it felt like she’d dislocated her shoulder, and Pep yelling, “I don’t have my seat belt on—” And Rube saying, “Oh, god, we’re going across—” And Mad asking, “Where are we?” as if that would somehow save her from dying. How did all this happen in a split second?

Mad watched as the PT Cruiser slid across the forty feet of grass that made up the median, the car sliding wildly as it alternately sped up and slowed down as Rube struggled to control it, and she turned to see a car in the opposite lane coming toward them at great speed. “Rube, please!” Mad yelled, and Rube said, “Oh, god! Hold on, wait. Wait—” And Mad heard the sound of the oncoming car’s horn blaring. And then it was silent, a complete absence of sound, the lights of the car blinding her, and then the PT Cruiser went back off the road, bumping and shaking as it came to an awkward stop on the other side of the interstate.

“Holy shit,” Pep said. “We almost died.”

“Are y’all okay?” Mad asked her siblings, but no one spoke, because they probably didn’t know the answer yet. Mad sensed only this surge of adrenaline that was still moving through her body. She actually felt, to be honest, like she would never die, that nothing would ever hurt her, that she was impervious to pain. She knew that in an hour or even a few minutes, this rush would wear off and her entire body would hurt, but right now, she was just going to live in this moment of not being dead.

To have died in the PT Cruiser? Good god, how humiliating. To have died on some stretch of interstate in New Mexico, in search of her missing father, would have been too embarrassing to mention at the wake, all three of them lined up in caskets at some nondenominational church, their father never even knowing what had happened to them, their moms trying to explain to well-wishers exactly what the circumstances of their deaths were. No matter how bad being alive could feel, it was way better than the embarrassment of death.

“The engine completely stalled out,” Rube said. “I was pressing the gas and then all the lights came on, and the engine just died, and then when I took my foot off the gas, it sped back up and I lost control.”

“I thought we were going to die,” Pep admitted.

“I know,” Mad said, “it sure seemed like we were.”

“I mean, for a few seconds, I just thought we were going to die,” Pep said again.

“Yes, okay,” Rube said. “But we didn’t. Okay? We didn’t die. We’re okay.”

“Rube,” Mad said, trying to decide if it was even worth it to ask if he’d fallen asleep, “are you okay?”

“I think so,” he said. “The car just went haywire.”

“You fell asleep!” Pep yelled.

“No!” he replied, “I just told you. The engine went crazy. Did you not hear me say that? The engine went dead and I said, ‘What in the world is happening?’ to both of you. Do you not remember?”

“I was asleep,” Mad said. “I didn’t hear anything except when you said ‘ shit’ like a hundred times.”

“I was asleep, too,” Pep offered. “But then I woke up and was like, ‘oh, we’re gonna die’ and I didn’t even have my seat belt on.”

“Pep, please. We didn’t die, okay? And, guys? I didn’t fall asleep. I promise.”

“Nobody stopped,” Mad observed, looking out the window.

“I’m going to take a look at the damage,” Rube said, and then he groaned as he unbuckled his seat belt. “Oh, man, my shoulders hurt.”

In the aftermath, now that Mad was assured that the three of them were still alive and had no visible injuries, she walked through a checklist of the accident. They had not hit another car. They actually, as she replayed it in her mind, hadn’t hit anything. They had shot sideways across a grass median, had almost been completely T-boned by an oncoming car, and had come to an abrupt stop on the other side of the interstate. Was it possible that the car was completely fine?

“Oh, no!” she heard Rube yell from outside the car. Mad stepped out of the car, the traffic rushing by them, but though cars were slowing slightly or moving lanes, no one had stopped to check on them. She looked at the entire front bumper of the car, which was missing.

“Where did it go?” she asked.

They looked around for a few seconds and then Mad saw it in the median, twisted in the shape of an S , standing upright in the dirt.

“Should we try to get it back?” Rube asked, and Mad shook her head. “Let’s not push our luck. We need to call the police and a tow truck.”

“Guys!” Pep yelled. “Get back in the car. You’re standing next to cars going sixty miles an hour. Get back in the freaking car!”

The two siblings climbed back into the PT Cruiser, which, Mad realized, had kept them safe. She was sorry to have been so mean to the PT Cruiser. She highly doubted it had random mechanical issues. Rube probably had just fallen asleep at the wheel.

“I’m going to call nine-one-one,” Rube said.

“What do we do?” Pep asked.

“We just have to wait for the police,” Mad replied, but then she heard Rube speaking to emergency services and telling them the highway number and somehow the last mile marker.

“Mad,” Pep continued, once Rube was continuing the call, “I mean, like, do we keep going?”

“Wait, what did you say?” Rube said, holding the phone away from his mouth. “Pep? What do you mean?” Then he was back on the phone, “No, sorry, sir, just checking on my sister. Yes, of course.”

“Should we stop?” Pep asked. “Do you think this is a sign?”

“I think—” Mad leaned closer to whisper to Pep, “I think Rube fell asleep.”

“It’s just,” Pep said, “maybe this is our chance to turn back before something bad happens.”

Mad thought about how far she had come, how many miles, how much awkwardness and anxiety and sadness she had experienced, and it made her unspeakably sad to think of quitting now. But there was also a part of her that understood what Pep meant. They had each other, the three of them. If they didn’t meet their brother this time, they could wait until he was actually old enough for it to mean something. But they knew each other existed, her and Pep and Rube. This was a makeshift family. Maybe it was enough.

Just then, Rube hung up the phone and turned to face them. “We’re not stopping, okay?”

“Calm down,” Pep said to Rube. “Jeez. That was a scary situation. It still is.” Mad watched Pep’s demeanor change now that Rube was asserting himself.

“Why didn’t you have your seat belt on?” Rube said. “You could have been hurt.”

“You almost killed us!” Pep finally yelled. “That was insane.”

“It was the car!” Rube said. “The engine cut out and then kicked back in. It was a mechanical error. Look, how far have I been driving? Hundreds and hundreds of miles. I’m a super responsible driver. This was not my fault.”

“I said we should have stopped earlier,” Mad said, unable to stop herself.

“Mad, please,” Rube said.

“Or you could have let me drive sometime,” Mad continued.

“Oh, my god, I’ve told you, like, a thousand times that you aren’t on the rental agreement. Imagine if the engine had done this while you were driving. I’d be on the hook for the car! I’m paying for everything alrea— Sorry. Shit, sorry.”

“That was mean,” Pep said. “I don’t even have my wallet and she’s a freaking farmer.”

“Pep, that’s not—” Mad tried to interrupt, but Pep was still going. “And you just show up and turn my entire world upside down and I lose that game and, god, if I’d been hurt right now, I couldn’t even play basketball anymore.”

“Your season is over, though,” Rube said.

“Professionally!” Pep shouted. “I might get drafted for the WNBA. It could happen. Definitely, I can play overseas if I want, in, like, Russia or Belgium or even Turkey.”

“Okay, well, I didn’t fully realize that, but you’re okay. Right? You’re okay,” Rube offered. “Even though you weren’t wearing your seat belt, which is its own kind of miracle.”

“Rube, please,” Mad said.

“I heard you guys, okay? You think this is some kind of sign? Well, the fact that Pep didn’t go flying out of the car is a sign. We’ll get another car and we’ll keep going.”

“Maybe we should fly?” Mad offered.

“Do you know how expensive it would be to fly to Salt Lake City and then fly to California?”

“I don’t have an ID,” Pep reminded them. “I don’t have my wallet, because I ran away so fast that I forgot to even bring a freaking toothbrush.”

“She can’t fly,” Rube said to Mad. “We’ll get another car, unless you want to take the bus.”

“Hey, the cops are here,” Pep said, and they looked up to see the flashing lights of a highway patrol car.

“I didn’t fall asleep,” Rube said. “That’s a fact.”

An officer walked cautiously to the PT Cruiser and tapped on Rube’s window. Rube gestured that he would need to open the door, and the officer allowed it.

“Do any of you need immediate medical assistance?” the officer asked them, and the siblings stared at each other and then shook their heads.

“Miraculously, Officer, I think we’re relatively unscathed,” Rube said, and Pep whispered, “Why are you talking like that?”

“License and registration, please.” Rube informed him that this was a rental car, but that he was the person responsible for the vehicle.

The officer also seemed to notice the weird formality that Rube was exhibiting, and looked at the three of them, a strange grouping, the ages not lining up, and his eyes narrowed. “What are you three up to tonight?”

The three of them looked at each other, struggling to explain who they were and what they were doing. Mad realized that the longer it took them to reply, the more it seemed like they were smuggling drugs across the country. But she still couldn’t speak, couldn’t begin to explain to this officer of the law what was going on.

“Mad and Pep are my sisters,” Rube finally said. “We’re on our way to see our dad. Kind of a surprise. We haven’t all been together in a pretty long time.”

Even before Rube had finished explaining, the cop seemed convinced that they hadn’t kidnapped Pep and had lost interest in their story.

Mad felt her breathing even out. They were siblings on a road trip. It wasn’t that strange, right? To hear it out loud, to any random person, they were brothers and sisters spending time together. It almost made the fact that they had nearly died in a horrific car wreck worth it just to hear one of them say it out loud and not be met with disbelief.

The officer looked across the interstate and shook his head. “I am trying to figure out how in the world what happened here … happened.”

Rube again explained the theory that the engine stalled and the officer nodded. “And you haven’t been drinking have you?”

“Nary a drop, Officer,” Rube said, shifting right back into the voice of a time traveler from the Victorian era, and then he turned to Pep. “You’re making me incredibly self-conscious.”

“Okay, I’m going to run this, fill out some paperwork, and we’re going to need to get a tow truck out here, and you’ll need to stay with the car until then.”

The three siblings sat in silence, listening to the rush of traffic, their heads aching from the flashing lights of the patrol car.

“Please come with me,” Rube finally said. “I’m begging you.”

Pep looked at her phone. “I think I’m going to call my mom,” she told them. “Maybe she can come get me.”

“Oh, god,” Rube said, and he looked like he was going to cry.

“Rube,” Mad said, touching his shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re okay. We’ll figure it out.”

“I’m going to tell you something,” he continued. “It’s personal. I’m trusting you.”

“Rube, I’m not sure—”

“I had this plan that I was going to kill Dad when we found him.”

“Rube!” Pep said.

“Not in front of you, obviously. Kind of when no one was looking. Or poison him? I don’t know. I’m not a murderer, so I didn’t think about that part, but it was just something I kept thinking about after my mom died.”

“Hey, the cop is coming back, just for your information,” Pep said, tapping Rube on the shoulder.

Rube turned to the oncoming officer, who said, “Okay, here’s where I need you to sign, and then you can get an accident report through the mail if you contact this number. Or you could even go online and get it, which is listed here. And a tow truck will be here in about five minutes. I’ll stay here until that happens, okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Rube said.

“And I need you to sign this, which states that you refused medical assistance at this time.”

Rube signed everything and the officer looked over the paperwork. “Are you a religious man, sir?” the officer asked.

“Not really, no,” Rube admitted.

“I’m not either, honestly,” the officer replied. “But you got lucky tonight.”

“I don’t feel super lucky.”

“Tomorrow you will.”

“I hope so.”

And then it was the three of them again. Rube checked to make sure the officer was back in his patrol car. “The point is, I just had this fantasy.”

“Rube, this is so dark,” Mad told him.

“But then I met the two of you. And it was, like, I felt like I had this family and it was a good thing, and I didn’t feel that kind of impulse anymore. I’m not going to kill our dad. I never was, probably.”

“Good,” Pep said.

“But I stopped thinking about it once we were on the road, the three of us. And I’m just scared if you guys leave.”

“We won’t leave you,” Mad said. “We were not talking about leaving you, Rube.”

“It felt like it.”

“We almost died. We’re shaken up. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“I don’t even have my ID,” Pep added.

“Pep doesn’t have a wallet or ID or her iPod.”

“Everything was just going forward, and now we’ve stopped. Whether you like it or not, we’re stuck for a little while. That’s it.”

“Both of you will go home to your moms and to your lives. I’m lonely. I’ve liked this trip so much. Even if we turned around, I’d be grateful for this. But I don’t want to turn around. I need to find him. I don’t know that I’ll try again if I quit. I just need to see him.”

Mad turned to look at Pep.

“Okay,” Pep said. “Yes, I get it. I like to finish what I start. I’d probably regret it if I left.”

“I’ll keep going,” Mad said.

“Do you feel like I’m taking advantage of things to make you stay on this trip?” Rube asked.

“Rube, I said I’ll keep going,” Mad told him.

“Oh, god,” Rube said. “Where are we going to find a hotel? And a rental car place? The closest airport is probably all the way back in Albuquerque. Shit, I have to tell the rental car company where to get their car.”

“Do you think we need to go get the bumper?” Pep asked him.

“I got the most expensive insurance package they offered,” he replied. “I don’t think they have to have the fender back.”

“It’s still standing straight up,” Pep observed. “It’s like it got planted into the earth. Oh, hey, the tow truck is here.”

“Thank you,” Rube told his sisters.

“It’s okay,” Mad said. “Thank you for not killing us. You kept your wits when the car went crazy.”

“You screamed so loud,” Pep said, “but it was pretty impressive.”

“I love you,” Rube suddenly said. “Both of you.”

Mad was not used to these kinds of proclamations of affection, but before she even let her mind work through the complications of what to say back to this person who was only recently revealed to be her half brother, she just said, “I love you, too, Rube.”

“Me, too,” Pep said. “I love you.”

“How weird,” Rube said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say it. I wanted to say it at a more opportune time, like looking out toward the horizon as the sun came up. But thank you.”

“We’ve had our big family fight and now we’ve made up,” Pep said. “That’s how it works, I think.”

The tow truck operator checked on them and when Rube informed him of the apparent issue, the man nodded. “I’ve not heard of that happening, honestly. But I also don’t see many PT Cruisers out this way.”

At this point, even Rube seemed to realize that, damn, he had probably fallen asleep, and so he didn’t press the issue.

“I’m gonna get you guys situated, and then I can drop you off at a hotel for the night. I can’t imagine you’ll be driving this thing anytime soon.”

They all stepped out of the car, stood as far away from the scene as was possible, and sat down on the dry ground. The lights of the tow truck and the patrol car were flashing around them, but Mad and Pep sat on either side of Rube and they looked up at the sky, which was filled with stars, millions and millions of tiny lights, and they allowed themselves this moment, to feel so small and alone in the universe, before they had to keep going.

THE PT CRUISER WAS NO LONGER A PART OF THEIR LIVES. THE AFTERMATH of the wreck had been such controlled chaos, and she was grateful for Rube’s love of procedure and his ability to hold on to forms and receipts and insurance account numbers and credit card resolution hotlines. But they had also been in the middle of nowhere, so they had to make do with what was available to them. And what was available to them, at no extra charge, the rental lady informed them several times, was a Chevrolet HHR. When it arrived, actually driven to their run-down motel by an employee of the rental car company, the siblings marveled at the fact that, somehow, the Chevrolet HHR, which had been described as a “retro-styled, high-roofed, five-door, five-passenger, front-wheel-drive wagon” looked like a freaking PT Cruiser.

“Oh, god, no,” Pep had shouted when the wagon pulled up. “This is a stretched-out PT Cruiser. How? How is this possible?”

“It’s not even the same brand,” Rube marveled. But it looked the same, that weird future-retro look that felt like a Dick Tracy cartoon, like a stream of freakish villains should be pouring out of it.

“It’s all they had,” Rube reminded them.

“I’ll drive,” Mad said. This time, Rube had put both of them on the rental agreement.

“To new beginnings,” Rube said, as they headed back onto the highway, and Pep told him to please shut up.

1999, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, DIGITAL 8MM

Opening shot of a small CRT monitor, the image flickering. It shows a weather map of the state of Utah, swirling colors of yellow and red moving on the computerized screen.

Into the frame steps a young boy, wearing a blue suit and a red tie, his hair slicked back. He is pointing at the town of Moab on the map and says, “Today’s temperature in Moab is going to be a chilly negative-fifty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.” He looks awkwardly off screen and shifts his body to uncover parts of the map behind him. He then points to Salt Lake City. “In Salt Lake City, though, we’ll be experiencing a balmy one-hundred-and-sixty-four degrees!” He pauses and then remembers to add, “Fahrenheit.”

He looks offscreen again and nods, and the image behind him changes. “Okay, let’s look at our five-day forecast, and it appears that we’re going to have flooding on Wednesday.” He points to a cartoon image of Noah’s Ark. “But then on Friday, no rain, but the sun isn’t going to rise at all.” He points to a cartoon image of the sun, asleep in bed, the alarm clock showing little squiggles of sound. “All in all,” the boy continues, gaining confidence, smiling, “a typical week in the great city of Salt Lake. Back to you, Mom—or, wait—back to you, Trista.”

The camera pans to a woman in a lavender pantsuit who is clapping, smiling. “Thanks, Tom,” she says, “and thanks to our cameraman and technician for those wonderful weather graphics.”

The camera pans back to the boy, already taking off the tie and jacket, who is laughing, pointing at the camera. The shot fades to black.