She didn't say anything. I looked over at her, but there was no expression on her face. I hadn't meant to pry, and as the silence continued, I felt like apologizing, but I didn't.

A big thunderstorm was brewing up over the hills in front of us, and we drove into a lowering curtain of smoky pearl clouds. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the sun still shining down on where we'd just come from. I knew that most of the people back there had no idea of what they were in for later that afternoon.

"When did you fall out of love with my father?"

"Thomas, do you really want to know about when I was in the hospital? I've never liked to talk about it, but if you'd like to know, I'll tell you."

She said it with so much conviction in her voice that I didn't know what to answer. She went on before I had a chance to say anything.

"The first time was horrible. They'd put me in these baths so that all of the dead skin would come off and the new could start to grow. I remember that there was this stupid nurse named Mrs. Rasmussen who took care of me and always talked to me like I was a moron. I don't remember much else about it except that I was scared and hated everything. I guess I've blocked a lot out. The second time was a lot of therapy, and everyone seemed much nicer. It's probably because they knew I'd be walking again. When I was in there, I discovered that people treat you much more… I don't know, humanely, when they see that you're going to be all right again."

A snake of yellow lightning skittered across the clouds, followed closely by one of those quick cracks of thunder that make you jump a little in spite of yourself. The radio had become almost pure static, so I switched it off. Big marbles of rain began to fall, but I held off turning on the windshield wipers until the last moment. My side window was down, and I could feel the dying heat and heaviness on the air. I thought about a little Saxony Gardner sitting bolt upright in a hospital bed with her little-kid legs bandaged all the way up and down. The picture was so sad and sweet that it made me smile. If I'd had a kid like that, I would have bought her so many toys and books that she would have suffocated under them.

"What was it like being the son of Stephen Abbey?"

I took a deep breath to put her off for a minute. In the time that we'd been together she'd asked me very few questions about my family, and I was damned grateful.

"My mother called him Punch. Sometimes he'd walk off a set in the middle of the day, come home, and take us all out to someplace like Knott's Berry Farm or the beach. He'd run around and buy us all hot dogs and Coke and ask us if this wasn't the best time we'd ever had in our lives. He got pretty manic sometimes, but we loved it all. If he got too crazy, then my mother would say, 'Take it easy, Punch,' and I'd hate her for it. He always had to be the life of the party when he was around, but since he was around so little then, we all ate him up."

The rain came down in transparent curtains, and you could hear it slooshing up under the wheels. I was driving in the slow lane, and whenever someone passed us there was so much water flung across the windshield that the poor wipers could barely keep up with it. The lightning and thunder were simultaneous now, so I knew that the storm was right over us.

"He took me to the studio once when they were filming A Fire in Virginia. In a way, it was one of the greatest days of my life, I guess. All I remember about it was that someone was always asking me if I wanted an ice cream, and that later I fell asleep and was carried into his dressing room. When I woke up he was standing over me like a white mountain, smiling that famous smile. He had on an all-white shirt and a huge cream panama hat with a black band." I shook my head and tapped out a tune on the steering wheel to swish away the memory. A Grand Union trailer truck floated by in slow motion.

"Did you love him?" Her voice was quiet and held back, I guess a little afraid.

"No. Yes. I don't know – how can you not love your father?"

"Very easily – I didn't love mine. His greatest dream in life came true when one of his students got into Harvard."

"What do you mean – your father was a teacher?"

"Uh-huh."

"You never told me that."

"Yes. He taught English too."

I slid a quick look at her, and she puffed out her cheeks so that she looked like a squirrel with a lot of nuts in there.

"I guess I shouldn't say this, but he was awful, from everything I remember about him." She put her hands on the dashboard and patted out a kind of soft African beat. She spoke while she patted. "He used to eat sliced pineapple and read Hiawatha out loud to my mother and me."

"Hiawatha? 'By the shores of Gitchy Gummi, / On the bottom of the lake, / Hiawatha and his buddies / Playing poker for a stake.'"

"Gee, you must be an English teacher too."

The sky was so dark that I switched on the headlights and slowed down to forty. I had often wondered what she was like as a kid. That nice, moony-pale face in miniature. I could see her off in a dark corner of a dark living room playing with her marionettes until nine, when her mother would tell her to go to bed. White socks that were falling down, and black patent leather shoes with gold buckles.

"You know, Thomas, when I was little about the only exciting thing my family ever did was to go to Peach Lake on the weekends in the summer. I used to get sunburned."

"Oh, yeah? Well, the only exciting thing that ever happened to me was reading The Land of Laughs and drinking Hires root beer out of a big glass bottle. Whatever happened to Hires root beer in a big glass bottle?"

"Oh, come on, you can't tell me that your life out there with all of those famous people wasn't neat. You don't have to try to make me feel better."

"Better? That has nothing to do with it. At least you had a normal father! Look, being his son was like living in this birdcage. You couldn't open your mouth without everyone being fake-nice to you or telling you how much they liked your 'Papa's' movies! What the hell did I care about his movies? I was a little kid, for Christ's sake! All I wanted to do was ride my bike."

"Don't shout."

"I don't have to…" I wanted to say something more, but I saw the turnoff for a roadside rest stop so I took it instead. It was dark as night outside as I crept down the exit ramp. The parking lot was filled with camper trucks and cars with overflowing luggage racks. Many of them were open to the rain, so the exposed suitcases, baby strollers, and bicycles were totally soaked and shiny. I found a parking space when a white Fiat with Oklahoma plates almost hit me while backing out of it. I switched off the motor and we both sat there while the rain hammered on the roof. Her hands were folded in her lap, but mine still gripped the steering wheel. I felt like ripping it off and handing it to her.

"All right, do you want something to eat or what?"

"Eat? Why? We've only been on the road for an hour."

"Oh, well, I'm sorry, dear – I'm not supposed to be hungry, huh? I'm not allowed to eat or anything unless you do, is that it?" I sounded like a kid who's just discovered sarcasm but doesn't know how to use it yet.

"Just shut up, Thomas. Go outside and have a fishburger or something. I don't care what you do. I don't deserve your anger."

There wasn't much else I could do but go. We both knew that I was making more and more of an ass of myself, but by then I didn't know how to stop. If I'd been her, I would have been royally bored by me.

"Do you want any… ? Oh, shit, I'll be back in a little while."

I opened the door and stepped right into this monstrous puddle, drenching both my sneaker and sock in one plunge. I looked to see if she'd been watching, but her eyes were closed, hands still folded in her lap. I put my other, dry foot carefully into the puddle and left it there until I felt the cold seeping in. Then I paddled both feet up and down in my new little footbath. Splish splat.