the map

My daddy picked us up at aunt Mildred's. He took us to the library. He had taken us a lot of places in our lives - Japanese restaurants, Yellowstone, Las Vegas, arcades, bookstores - but never the library.

He showed us a map, and told us we had two choices: North Dakota or Wisconsin. In three days we were getting on a plane and never coming back.

I panicked. North Dakota or Wisconsin? These were not options. We'd been to North Dakota almost every summer of our lives - it was like Siberia - no houses around for miles, no kids to play with except the shirtless Johnson kids who lived in the old Junkyard near the border. North Dakota was not an option.

We were California kids - swimming pools, movie stars, shopping malls and oceans. The midwest was a vast wasteland, a vacuum, just waiting to suck the last bit of "cool" from us. What was daddy thinking? He was cool himself - a TV news anchor, and hip politician - he was going to lose his "cool" just the same as us. But right now, he didn't seem to care.

I looked at Little Brother. He fidgeted in his chair and looked at me. He looked much less worried than I felt. The kid was always up for an adventure - and at least we had relatives in North Dakota.

"Wisconsin!" I shouted. Why, I don't know - except that I had just lost two mothers and was about to lose the only home I'd ever known. Wisconsin sounded like a better plan. We had relatives there too - we just didn't know them.

Little Brother noddedd, and without a question as to why, daddy agreed. "Why are we going so far?" I asked.

"We have to start over," he said.

But I already had a plan. I would stay with crazy - or maybe even my dying Grandpa. I would not be dragged into the nothing - even if I never saw daddy again, I would not let him take me from my mother - even if she was dead.