"Come on in", Mama said, and I wondered how she saw, cause she was staring out the kitchen window that was over the sink, out into the back yard, though she didn't look like she was looking at anything in particular back there.

Daddy walked through the living room, through the dining room, into the kitchen. He took a look through the kitchen window too, so I looked through too, but it was just the backyard, the swing set, the sandbox, the sun reflecting off the tin of the slide, and way in the back the trees between our yard and the empty lot, nothing different, nobody strange in our yard, and then Daddy looked away, so I did too, but Mama didn't. Daddy was wearing his station uniform, all white and greasy. He'd have a clean one for his next day of work, but after work they were always smeared here and there with grease. Just like his hands were scrubbed clean except around his fingernails where the grease never came out.

Daddy just stood there looking at Mama. He seemed about to say something, but he didn't say anything. Mama just stared out the back window, then she looked down at what she was packing, her hands kept moving even when she looked out the window. She didn't look at Daddy, but I expect she saw everything, just like she saw Daddy standing at the front door even though she wasn't looking that way.

Mama said, "We're trying to get packed Lewis." She didn't stop packing when she said this. She was filling boxes with kitchen stuff, cleaning out the drawers. She had stacks of newspaper laying on the kitchen table, and she'd pick up a sheet and wad it up with anything she'd pack, or use the paper to wrap something up

Daddy said, "Well, what're you going to eat? Don't tell me you're cooking in the middle of all this. I could take them out for some dinner. You'd have that much less to worry about."

"We've got peanut butter." Mama said, and she said it in a way so I knew we'd go if Daddy could just talk a little longer without fighting. She was just saying that we were doing fine, just fine, whether he took us to dinner or not, but she wasn't saying she wouldn't let him.

"Save it for the train," Daddy said. "They charge an arm and a leg for a hot meal on a train. Kids'll have their fill of peanut butter on a three day trip to Springfield, Missouri." He took off his hat and played with it. I liked those hats, like soldier's hats, only white. Uncle Rawls had a soldier hat like that when we visited him once in Missouri.

"I guess they will," Mama said.

"How about it kids? You want to go out to eat at A & W?" Daddy said.

I nodded my head, and Bobby said, "Can we Mama?" Lindsay came over to stand by Mama, and Andy just went right on playing with his toys like he was before, only he was also singing "rootbeer, rootbeer," so I expected Daddy to call him the Cornball Kid like he did sometimes, but Daddy didn't.

"Go ahead," Mama said, and turned back away from us. Us kids, even Lindsay who didn't always want to come with Daddy, were all following him out to the car, the car that wasn't Mama's car any more. Daddy walked through the dining room, and as he passed the freezer he looked at it, and I sucked in my breath a little, but he didn't say anything, not like the last time, last time when he said, "Eileen, I wish'd you told me you were getting a divorce. I'd of never bought that freezer on time."

It made Mama angry and I was glad he didn't say anything about that freezer again, that he didn't make her angry. I wanted A&W rootbeer, and I wanted Daddy, one more time at least before we left for Missouri. We weren't taking the freezer to Missouri, not any of the furniture, just what could be packed in boxes and sent on a train, and Mama was wrapping everything up careful so none of it would break, so I didn't know what would happen to that freezer that Daddy was buying on time.

Daddy drove us out to the A&W. Usually we just got rootbeer at the A&W, but Daddy told us they had hamburgers too, and he asked us what we wanted on the way so we'd be ready when the carhop girl came to take our order. Bobby wanted a burger with fries, "Can I have a large rootbeer?" Bobby asked Daddy.

Daddy said, yes, Bobby could, and I asked could I have a large one too, and said I wanted a burger and fries. Daddy smiled at me and said I could have a large one. But Andy and Lindsay, he told them that he'd get them a medium instead of the baby size they usually got, and if they wanted more he'd get them another. Andy and Lindsay wanted a burger and fries too.

Up ahead on the left was the A&W, with a big sign showing a mug of frothy rootbeer. Daddy slowed down, waited a minute for a car going the other way to get past, and then turned the car into the driveway. In front of the A&W building were a lot of lines painted on the blacktop to show where the cars should park. Daddy drove slowly up into one, but he had a lot of choices because hardly any of them had a car there already. Almost right away a carhop girl came out to take our order, so it was good that Daddy had already asked us what we wanted.

The carhop girl was wearing black shorts and a white blouse and a little white apron, which was what they always wore, and she also had white tennis shoes, and white anklet socks folded down into cuffs, and wore her hair in two pigtails and bangs, with the A&W hat perched up on her head just behind the bangs, and held in place with bobby pins. The carhop girl had a turned up freckled nose and she skipped out to the car, not really skipping but bouncier than just walking, all cheerful, just like the A&W carhop girls always did.

"What can I get you?" the carhop girl asked, pulling out her little pad and a pen from the back pocket of her shorts. Daddy told her what we wanted and she wrote it all down, and she smiled when he said that his two older kids were getting so big, they thought they'd like to try a large rootbeer this time. Actually, Daddy smiled first, and she smiled back at him, then she looked back down at her pad and kept on writing.

After Daddy paid her and she left with our order, Daddy turned in his seat so he could see Bobby in the front seat, and me and Lindsay and Andy in the back. I was sitting right behind Daddy, behind the driver's seat, and he turned way around so he could look at me too. Daddy said, "Well, in a few more days, you'll be seeing your Grandma and Grandpa Dornan, and your Uncle Tom, and Aunt Nancy. Guess you'll be glad to see them all again."

Bobby said, "Sure, Daddy." I wasn't too clear on who Uncle Tom was but Aunt Nancy had come out to Yakima once to visit, and I knew they both still lived with Grandma and Grandpa even though they were practically grown up.

Then Daddy didn't say anything more, and he turned away and was looking at something on the dashboard or the floor. Hanging down from the front window in the middle was a flat spongy skunk with a perfumey smell, that Daddy said was a deodorizer, but he wasn't looking at that. It looked like he was looking at the hump in the floor between the two front seats, but that wasn't anything to look at. Daddy turned back to us and he smiled, and he said, "Well, I hope you have a good time with your grandparents." Then he didn't say anything more, and neither did we, and a little bit later the carhop girl came back.

This time she was carrying an orange tray, with five mugs of rootbeer and two white paper bags on it, and when he saw her coming Daddy hurried to roll up his window part way, just a few inches so the tray could set on the window right. The tray had these hooks that settled right over the window, and then the tray held the food just outside the door. The car hop girl set the tray on the window, and Daddy tried to help her, but she didn't really need help. Then she pulled some change out of her pocket, and she laid it on the tray along with the order form, and she said, "Here's your change, Sir," and skipped away.

Daddy started handing us our hamburgers and our fries, and we set them in our laps, and we reached out again, and this time he handed us each our mug of rootbeer. Rootbeer from A&W is the best rootbeer. The glasses are so cold, the glasses get mist on them, like in winter when you can write on the car window with your finger, only Mama always says not to. The rootbeer has thick foam on the top, and when you hold the rootbeer your fingers make marks on the fogged up sides of the glass, and you hold it by the handle as soon as you can without spilling, because it is so cold.

Daddy gave me my rootbeer first, a big mug just like his, and said, "Be careful now." I had set my burger and fries in my lap so I could take the rootbeer with both hands. The thick mug was kind of heavy, and he didn't let go til he was sure that I had it, and I set it down carefully on the car seat, but even after I set it down I held it by the handle so it wouldn't spill on the seat of the car, the car that wasn't Mama's car any more. Then Daddy handed a mug to Lindsay, and he was slow about it and made sure she had a good hold on it too before he let go. When he came to Andy, he decided that Andy better come up in the front seat between him and Bobby, and then they both could help Andy with his rootbeer and his food. So Bobby opened his door and came back and opened Andy's door, and Andy got out and went up into the front seat, and sat in the middle, and got to put his feet up onto the hump in the floor, so that they weren't dangling off the seat because his legs are so short.

Bobby had Andy's burger and fries, so Daddy handed Andy his medium sized mug of rootbeer, and you could tell it was a lot for Andy to hold, so Daddy kind of helped him guide the mug to his mouth, and after Andy took a long foamy swallow of it, Daddy said, "Here, I'll keep it on the tray for you and you can tell me when you're ready for another drink." Then Bobby gave Andy his burger to hold and put his fries down where Andy could reach them

Daddy said, "You doing okay back there?" to me and to Lindsay, and I said yes and Lindsay said yes. Then we were all just eating and drinking, and every once in awhile Daddy was helping Andy take another drink of his rootbeer. Then Daddy turned back round in his seat so he could see all of us, way around so he could even see me around behind him, and Daddy had tears coming from his eyes. I saw them. He opened his mouth to say something. Then he had to cough a couple of times before he could talk, then he said, "I never thought she'd take you kids away from me." Daddy was crying and I never say him cry before, then he reached over to the tray for his rootbeer and he took a drink of it like that would help him stop crying, but it didn't. I wasn't crying, not really, but my eyes were all misted like the mugs with the rootbeer and when I looked out it was like looking through fog on a window.

continued in part 2