Father motions her behind the steering wheel. We’re on the field he graded with a landing strip in mind, so where’s the harm? She backs away and when I look up from the back seat, her black curly head is unbelievably in charge. And doesn’t she fly! Floors our cranky Morris Oxford, skids switchbacks, screeches tires — a cloudburst of laughter. Pinball in her power, I shriek glee and terror as brush leaps forward and streaks by. Father stamps on the brake, voice an iron bar crashing onto concrete. I tumble to the floor. And nothing like it ever happens again.
Susan Smith writes mostly poetry in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. MOTHER DRIVES happened 63 years ago. Mother never drove.