Me at 10's Arc

Chapter 5 of 9

The fire trucks leave and Dad walks back to the car like nothing happened. He doesn't ask if she's okay. He doesn't put his hand on her shoulder or check on her brother and sister. He just opens the driver's door and tells Mom to get everyone back in. Friday comes and he's standing in the kitchen doorway saying Tennessee. Not asking. Just announcing it like he announced Florida. She sits perfectly still at the table and waits for him to look at her, to explain, to pick her. But he's already loading bags into the car. She watches through the window as he slams the trunk and wipes his hands on his jeans. This time she decides she won't wait in silence. This time she'll sit up front. She'll be close enough that he has to see her. Close enough that she matters more than whatever he's driving toward. Nashville is hot and the buildings are taller than she expected. Dad parks on a street she doesn't know and points at a building with tall windows and a sign that says Grand Ole Opry. She climbs out and stands beside a parking meter with a cracked face while he reads a poster near the entrance. Hank Snow's name stretches across it in big letters. Dad starts laughing. Not the kind that invites her in, but the kind that seals him off. He says they could have stayed in Canada and keeps laughing like it's the best joke he's ever told. She looks at the poster and the building and the cracked meter and understands that this whole trip was for nothing. Tennessee was just another place for him to laugh alone. She doesn't cry. She stands there on the hot pavement and makes a choice. She stops trying to be close. She stops believing that sitting up front or being quiet or being good will make him pick her. He brought her all this way to laugh at a sign. She gets back in the car without asking where they're going next. She sits in the back seat this time, away from him, and when he starts the engine she looks out the window instead of at his face. Being his girl forever isn't something she can win. It's something he has to give. And he won't.