“You can’t learn everything you need to know legally,” her father told her.
She had to concentrate hard on the driving; it was one of the few times they’d been out in the old white Volvo together when she didn’t ask him to tell her about what had happened to Thomas and Timothy. Ted waited until they were approaching Flushing Meadows; then, without any warning, he began to tell her the story in exactly the same way that he’d told it to Eddie O’Hare, with Ted Cole in the third person—as if Ted were just another character in the story, and a minor character at that.
Ted interrupted the part about how much he and Marion had had to drink, and why Thomas had been the obvious choice—the only sober driver—to tell Ruth to get out of the passing lane and into the far-right lane instead. “You get on the Grand Central Parkway here, Ruthie,” her father casually said. She had to change lanes a little too fast, but she managed it. Soon she saw Shea Stadium, off to her right.
At the part in the story where he and Marion were arguing about the best place to make a left turn, Ted interrupted himself again—this time to tell Ruth to take Northern Boulevard, through Queens.
She knew that the old white Volvo tended to overheat in stop-and-go-traffic, but when she mentioned it, her father said, “Just don’t ride the clutch, Ruthie. If you’re stopped for a while, take it out of gear, put it in neutral, and step on your brake. Keep your foot off your clutch as much as you can. And remember your rearview mirror.”
By then, she was crying. It was after the snowplow scene, when her mother knew that Thomas was dead, but she didn’t yet know about Timothy. Marion kept asking Ted if Timmy was all right, and Ted wouldn’t tell her—he’d just watched Timmy die, but he couldn’t speak.
They came over the Queensboro Bridge, into Manhattan, at the moment in the story when her father was explaining about Timothy’s left leg—how the snowplow had severed it at midthigh, and that when they tried to take the body away, they had to leave the leg behind.
“I can’t see the road, Daddy,” Ruth told him.
“Well. There’s no place to pull over, is there?” her father asked her. “You’ll just have to keep going, won’t you?” Then he told her the part where her mother had noticed her brother’s shoe. (“Oh, Ted, look— he’s going to need his shoe,” Marion had said, not realizing that Timmy’s shoe was still attached to Timmy’s leg. A
nd so on . . .)
Ruth headed uptown on Third Avenue.
“I’ll tell you when to cut over to Park,” her father told her. “There’s a place on Park Avenue where the Christmas decorations are especially worth seeing.”
“I’m crying too much—I can’t see where I’m going, Daddy,” Ruth told him again.
“But that’s the test, Ruthie. The test is, sometimes there’s no place to pull over—sometimes you can’t stop, and you have to find a way to keep going. You got it?”
“Got it,” she said.
“So,” her father said, “now you know everything.”
Ruth realized later that she’d also passed that part of the test which had not been mentioned. She’d never looked at him; he’d sat unseen in the passenger seat. All the while that her father was telling the story, Ruth had never taken her eyes from the road, or from the rearview mirror. That had been part of the test, too.
That November night in ’69, her father had made her drive up Park Avenue, all the while commenting on the Christmas decorations. Somewhere in the upper eighties, he’d told her to cut over to Fifth. Then they’d come down Fifth Avenue to the Stanhope, which was opposite the Met. It was the first time she’d heard the flags at the Met snapping in the wind. Her father had told her to give the keys of the old white Volvo to the doorman; his name was Manny. Ruth had been impressed that the doorman knew her father.
But they all knew her father at the Stanhope. He must have been a frequent guest. It’s where he brings women ! Ruth realized. “Always stay here—when you can afford it, Ruthie,” her father had told her. “It’s a good hotel.” (Since 1980, she’d been able to afford it.)
That night they’d gone into the bar and her father changed his mind about the port. He’d ordered a bottle of an excellent Pommard instead; Ted finished the wine while Ruth drank a double espresso, knowing that she had to drive back to Sagaponack. All the time they sat in the bar, Ruth felt that she was still gripping the steering wheel. And although it would have been permissible to look at her father in the bar—before they got back in the old white Volvo—she couldn’t look at him. It was as if he were still telling her the terrible story.
It was after midnight when her father directed her up Madison Avenue; somewhere in the upper nineties, he told her to turn east. They took the F.D.R. Drive to the Triborough; then the Grand Central Parkway to the L.I.E., where her father fell asleep. Ruth remembered that Manorville was the exit she wanted; she didn’t have to wake her father to ask him how to get home.
She was driving against the holiday traffic—the headlights of the horde returning to the city were constantly in her eyes—but there was almost no one headed in her direction. A couple of times, she opened up the old white Volvo, just to see how fast it could go. She reached eighty-five twice, and ninety once, but at those speeds a shimmy in the front end frightened her. Most of the way, she stuck to the speed limit and thought about the story of how her brothers had died—especially the part about her mother trying to save Timmy’s shoe.
Her father didn’t wake up until she was driving through Bridgehampton. “How come you didn’t take the back roads?” he asked.
“I felt like having all the town lights around me, and the headlights of the other cars,” Ruth said.
“Oh,” her father said, as if he were falling back to sleep.
“What kind of shoe was it?” Ruth asked.
“It was a basketball shoe, Timmy’s favorite.”
“High-tops?” she guessed.
“Right.”
“Got it,” Ruth said, turning onto Sagg Main. Although, at that moment, there were no other cars in sight of the Volvo, Ruth put her directional signal on; a full fifty yards before she turned, she put on her blinker.