Tract Four:

Winter 2007-Winter 2008

The Road to Sparrowhawk Mountain

“Leo, come on. Let's get the show on the road,” Joseph Lightfoot turned on the overhead light in his daughter’s room and stood in the door frame, a thermos of coffee in his hand. “Your driver’s test is on Saturday, and you need two more hours of nighttime driving to meet the requirements.”

Her alarm clock read five a.m. “Really, Dad? On a school morning?” Even as she protested, she tugged on a pair of jeans over her sleep shorts and a sweatshirt over her cotton tee. “Won’t we be cutting it close? After a couple of hours of driving, I still have to shower and make lunch. And in case you don’t know, your daughter has a perfect attendance record. I don’t want to be counted as absent or tardy.”

“We’re not going to be late. Besides, I have parent-teacher conferences tonight and tomorrow. It’s now or never.”

“And you can’t see your way into signing off that I completed my ten hours of driving in the dark? Everyone says their parents fudged the time sheet. I have my daytime hours. It’s no big deal.”

“It is to me, Leotie.” He turned and walked down the hall, the wooden floorboards creaking under his feet.

Leo sighed as she followed him. Delaying learning to drive was her decision, after all, and her father hadn’t questioned why. He hadn’t pushed. Late summer, before her senior year of high school started, she announced at a family dinner of macaroni and jalapeno cheese that she was ready. Uncle Paul stepped up to the plate first, and when Leo could handle his automatic vehicle with undaunted assurance, Joseph took the reins in late fall. He was adamant that Leo learn how to drive a manual. If you know how to drive a stick, you can drive any vehicle in any circumstance. This had seemed critically important to him, so she had not argued.

For two successive weekends, he took his daughter to the empty school parking lot and patiently taught her how to drive his 1999 five-speed Honda Civic. Leo learned the gears, how to engage the clutch, shift, and accelerate without stalling. Once she seemed confident with her newly acquired skills, he let her drive around the neighborhood, then to and from school on days they didn’t walk.

Out of this frosty, pre-dawn morning, light snow, an unusual but not unforeseen occurrence in early December, was starting to take form, white brush strokes on a black canvas. Leo took a swig of hot coffee, performed her safety checks, adjusted her rearview mirror, pulled the driver’s seat forward, and turned on her windshield wipers with the heater on full blast. She looked at her dad. “I’m ready.”

She followed his directions, driving without question and shifting easily. When he told her to stop, they were on a steeply inclined road, flanked by bare-branched stands of oak-hickory interspersed with short-leaf pine, leading to the top of Sparrowhawk Mountain. Headlights perforated the darkness, giving the illusion the road was a tightly enclosed tunnel reaching into the sky. Leo looked at her father and waited. His usually steady eyes seemed hard-edged. She tensed. What was going on?

“Shifting gears and accelerating on an empty, flat parking lot or driving to school is one thing. But you need to know how to navigate balancing the clutch and gas so that you don’t stall out on a steep hill in San Francisco or anywhere else, with cars bumper to bumper behind you. You need to be able to get out of tough positions.” He took a deep breath, his face serious with intent. “I need to know you can figure this stuff out in any situation you might find yourself in. I need to know you’re going to be okay.”

Were there tears in his eyes? Leo knew instinctively this went beyond what was happening now. She nodded and swallowed. “It’s okay, Dad. I’m going to be all right. I’ve got this, I really do.”

She started, stopped, and stalled but hit the brakes when the car slid backward. Over and over, she tried. The initial panic she felt when slipping downhill was quickly replaced with inner grit. Determination and concentration fueled the need to show her father she could rise to the occasion and meet his expectations. She was resolute, above all, that she would do what was possible to assuage her father’s fears.

On their way back home with thirty minutes to spare before the first bell rang, with hot showers and a cinnamon toast breakfast planned, her father pulled out Leo’s driving log from the glove compartment and signed off that she had met the required fifty hours behind the wheel, including the mandate that ten of them be in the dark. As dawn’s pale, icy fingers attempted to insert themselves, to nudge a reluctant night into retirement, out of the dense brush stepped a solitary doe. Standing stock-still in the middle of the glazed strip of road, she calmly lifted her head, looking directly through the windshield and into Leo’s eyes. Leo slammed on the brakes, then rapidly turned the steering wheel, sending the little black hatchback into a full-on, out-of-control spin.

Two hours later, after the tow truck hauled the car out of the ditch and before proceeding to the repair shop, the driver dropped them off at the high school.

“No showers, no breakfast, what a start to our day.” Leo’s father shook his head, looking at his daughter, relief in his eyes. “Me and my bright ideas. Sorry about breaking your perfect attendance streak.”

“Records are meant to be broken, right?” She smiled. “Who needs a certificate of achievement in that silly category? Sorry about your car.” She shrugged apologetically.

“Vehicles are replaceable, but….”

“I know, Dad.” Leo stood on her toes and quickly kissed her father’s cheek. “See you after school.”

****

“Today in class, we’ll compose a letter to a soldier serving overseas.” Leo’s substitute English teacher taped a long list of names and their APO addresses on the chalkboard. She sighed; this day already seemed endless. A bruise was forming where the seat belt dug into her body. Her chest was tender to the touch. She was finally in the last class of the day, freedom only fifty minutes away. These filler exercises made up by the endless stream of replacement instructors were lame. She wished her regular teacher, Ms. Barkley, was back. How many months off did a person really need after having a baby?

Her classmates bunched around the posting, jostling and laughing. Judy Langard, a girl the entire school knew, seemed to be on center stage. Judy had been the lead in last year’s musical production of “Beauty and the Beast.” Leo had helped work on the set after being encouraged by Dr. Baker to get more involved and to make connections.

Unlike Leo, Judy appeared comfortable in every situation. How different her life would be if she had that kind of confidence. While Leo felt at ease in her skin, content living her life, she also felt an indescribable longing for friendship and a more profound sense of belonging. Thanks to her continued counseling, she understood how the loss of her mother and the intense ache of all she believed she’d missed was the source of her pain, which ultimately caused her to self-medicate. But perspective doesn’t always diminish losses into paler specters.

From the crowd, Judy looked across the room in Leo’s direction and gave an encouraging smile. Leo wasn’t sure if she was looking at her or someone seated directly behind her and was too embarrassed to look around to verify. How do you navigate complicated cues? Leo gave a weak smile back and then, embarrassed that she had misread a signal, bent to retrieve something from her book bag. There were too many pushy bodies around the homework assignment. She would wait until the congregation thinned.

The radiator next to Leo clanked and hissed, sending off a blast of heat. Leo removed her sweatshirt, then, realizing she still had her sleep shirt on underneath, quickly pulled it back on, hoping no one had noticed. No one had.

Outside, the snowfall continued. Full, lacey crystals spiraled in casual descent. Leo loved how her dull world was washed white, making everything look like the insides of an unfinished, factory-reject snow globe, no content, all snow. She found solace in this space and was grateful the flurry had continued throughout the day. She hadn’t been able to build a snowman in a long time. Maybe she could talk her dad into hot chocolate on their walk home. Uncle Paul was away on a business trip, and the house was their own for a few days.

It always felt different when he was gone, quieter, somehow more controlled. Though older, Uncle Paul never acted like it. His high energy and laughter punctuated their lives. He kept things light, bright balloons floating skyward, while her father kept them all safely tethered to the ground.

How different her experience was when Uncle Paul let her drive. The first time Leo climbed into the driver’s seat of her uncle’s 1996 Ford pick-up, he looked at her with relaxed eyes and yawned. “My last trip was tiring. I’m going to sleep, and you, my niece, will drive. She’s easy to handle, with an inline six-cylinder engine, automatic drive, and a belly full of gas. Wake me up if you need me.” He bunched up his jacket, placed the makeshift pillow behind his head, and promptly fell asleep.

When he woke two hours and forty minutes later, the truck was parked at the Oklahoma City airport. “You told me to drive,” Leo stated matter-of-factly.

“That I did.” Uncle Paul stretched and looked at the trip mileage he had zeroed at the start. “One hundred and seventy miles, great job! Now let’s grab some grub. It's tough business being the passenger of a student driver.”

They were seated in the bed of the two-toned, mint condition, blue and silver F-150, their legs dangling over the side as they munched on burgers and fried okra and drank thick milkshakes. Leo watched the planes lift, soaring heavenward, carrying their occupants to destinations nearby and places so far-flung and exotic that she hadn't heard of them. The earth, was vast. How little she had seen and experienced. But in that moment, she was content. Leo couldn’t imagine the sensation of not having her feet connected to the ground.

“Miss? Miss?” A tap on Leo’s shoulder brought her to the present.

“Yes, Mister…?” She looked at the chalkboard to see the substitute teacher’s name. “Mr. Frederic?”

“Class is almost over. The assignment is due tomorrow, and everyone else has chosen. Please, pick a soldier and draw a line through their name when you decide.”

Leo tugged at her sweatshirt. The classroom was warm, and this busy work seemed pointless. But she remained quiet and respectful. She had a research paper due next week and had to study for an AP American History exam.

The slim teacher did not smile. As if he could read her mind, he pointed to the paper. “I will be here tomorrow. This counts as homework. Therefore, the assignment impacts your final grade, so I suggest you get going.”

Leo scanned the names, one blurring into the other. Where was Uncle Paul with his ridiculous English accent when she needed him to make the mundane interesting? She was about to close her eyes and arbitrarily choose when something familiar caught her eye. Near the bottom of the long list was a name Leo recognized. She grabbed the index card and hastily wrote down the Army Post Office address. Tonight, she would sit down and write a letter to Sergeant Ray Shipworth.

****

Leo slid her feet along the icy sidewalk, a fledgling skater, and tipped her head back to catch the fat snowflakes on her tongue. The streets of Tahlequah were tranquil, muted by the expanding blanket. Thwack! Something cold and hard struck her in the back. With lynx-like reflexes, Leo swiftly turned around. There she saw her father, his face flushed from the cold, his eyes sparkling, daring, his arm cocked back, poised with another snowball.

“You did not just do that!” With surprised delight, Leo swiftly bent to gather handfuls of heavy, packing snow. “Bring it on!” She let one fly, and her father, despite his inherent agility, was not quite prepared for her speed. The snowball caught him on his forehead, the explosion of ice spilling into his open jacket and down his flannel shirt. He burst out laughing, and Leo followed, their revelry momentarily piercing the deepening hush.

Much later, after mugs of half marshmallow, half double hot cocoa, and bowls of popcorn were consumed, after the familiar routines of life were completed, Leo sat crossed-legged on her family’s worn dark brown corduroy couch. She nestled into a sagging pocket that springs had long ceased supporting, a blanket draped around her shoulders. Gazing into a capering fire her father had built in the wood burner, with genuine intent, Leo composed a candid letter to her assigned soldier, Ray. She licked the envelope and sealed it. Will he ever get this? And if he does, will he remember me?