At the End of the World, Turn Left

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The second I land in Milwaukee, I’m a different person. My whole body tenses, from my leather-booted feet to my long brown hair, crimped into stifled curls during the fourteen-hour flight from Israel. If my dad notices any of this, he doesn’t mention it. He’s smoking again, staring out the window. I haven’t seen him with a cigarette in years, and for a second I can’t help but wonder if I got in the right car. But there is no mistaking his dusty, maroon clunker in which I spent much of the nineties dreaming of other continents. Nor is my unsmiling Russian father difficult to distinguish from the other middle-aged men idling at the arrivals terminal.

“Hey,” I say, sinking into the old sun-bleached passenger seat. I decide not to ask about the Marlboro Lights on the dash next to a Nirvana sticker I’d once pasted there, nor why the right mirror is still duct-taped on at a strange angle, like a misplaced limb. When it comes to my dad, it’s better to wait until he offers information. Normally this drives me crazy, but I’m too tired to feel much of anything. I attempt a smile anyhow. “I appreciate your efforts to save money for my inheritance, but you might want to consider getting a car that’s not held together by superglue?”

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