"Oh, I think I heard about that. That's too bad." He turns onto Route 3. He keeps both hands on the wheel when he turns. He's a careful man, not a confident one. "When's he coming?"

"Next week."

"I'd like to see him."

I sigh. "I'll tell Mom."

"Good. Good. You do that."

"She says to remind you that you owe us a check from last week and this week."

"Oh. Okay. Did I forget last week?"

"I forgot to remind you when I got out of the car." I stare at the big knuckles on his hands. "I should've told you when you dropped me off at school."

"You shouldn't have to remind me. It's not right. Me giving you a check."

"You could mail it."

He shakes his head. "It's like I'm renting you. It can't be good for you, me giving you that check."

We pull into the parking lot of the Blue Hill Grange. The sign outside says: Engine Show. Here Sunday Noon. There are already tons of rusted-out Ford trucks, Dodge SUVs and Chevy vans. All the cars here are American. A trivial fact that I note and then don't know what to do with. Another trivial fact here is that everyone wears grandpa clothes like we're stuck in the 1980s, these old jeans and big belt buckles and plaid shirts or T-shirts with truck company names on them. I shake my head.

As my father parks next to a baby blue van that looks like it's been involved in a good twenty-seven kidnappings, he says, "I'd never remember to mail it."

I look at him, confused.

"The check," he says. "It would drive your mother crazy."

I nod, unlock my car door so that I can get out. I don't like talking about these money things.

The cuff of his blue pants lifts up a bit. It shows me his ankle and calf. Light blue nylon covers them. No, not nylon, cotton. Cotton tights stretched so tight that the black leg hair matted against the weave is visible.

My father is wearing tights.

Engines big and little shine their metal inside the grange hall. They sit on card tables and men, mostly old men like my father, walk around them and talk about things like carburetors and engine years. They touch the moving engines the way a woman touches a baby, reverently. Their hands stay away from the inner spokes of the spinning wheels; their heads nod up and down with the levers. The engines are lined up in rows and all the men do is walk up and down slowly, staring at the engines, touching. I usually count the colors to keep myself awake, place bets on whether there'll be more green or red engines at this show.

Sometimes I imagine a gunfight. Maybe a crazy, played-out man comes in with wild eyes. The engine show community has slighted him and the man with the souped-up John Deere engine stole his wife away after singing her some country Tim McGraw song at a late-night karaoke. He's got nothing to lose, this man. He's got a bomb strapped to his shirt and his eyes are cold steel and everyone is terrified. The men with the plaid shirts dive for cover. One man with an American Legion hat lunges for him, but the terrorist whacks him down with a karate chop to the neck. He crumples.

I wait. I think. The crazy man gives threats.

"Everyone down!" he yells. "Or we all die together!"

I do not go down on the floor. I will not give him that. Instead, I squat behind a big generator. I peek out and when he's not looking I lunge, grab his legs and he falls. With two hands, I rip the bomb off his chest and throw it through the window. It was velcroed on or something.

The bomb explodes outside. A bit of ceiling falls on us and another window shatters but no one is hurt, except me. I've got a gash across my cheek and it bleeds.

Everyone is silent. A tumbleweed blows down the center aisle at the grange and then suddenly everyone starts cheering.

My father, who is suddenly tall, wearing normal socks and a cowboy hat, stares and then lifts me from under my shoulders saying, "That's my girl. That's my girl."

All the old men pet me on the shoulder and think of when they were heroes, too. Someone buys me a pizza from up the street and my picture is in the paper. At school, everyone loves me, even stupid Paolo "Is Your Father Gay?" Mattias. The principal lets me wear a six-shooter on my hip to school to help ensure its safety.

I draw my pretend gun and turn my index finger into a pretend barrel.

"Pow," I whisper to the engine show people. "I'll save you. Pow. Pow. Pow."

But there is no crazy man, just happy old guys rubbing their hands together, jawing away, looking at moving parts.

On the way home I cock my gun, spew it out, and I say to my dad, "I'm not looking forward to this Mike O'Donnell guy coming."

"Why not?"

I shrug. My stomach growls real loud. My father's eyes go big.

"I forgot to feed you!"

"It's okay," I say and cross my legs.

"That's no good. Oh, how can I do that?" He smacks his forehead with the palm of his hand. It makes a horrible sound, like a gunshot.

We're at my driveway. I put my hand on my dad's arm and play the heroine role, sweet, understanding. For extra oomph, I shake out my hair, because that's what they would do in a movie. "It's okay. I'm not hungry."

He shakes his head. "What kind of father am I? I can't even remember to feed you."

I kiss his cheek. "I'll see you next Sunday, Dad."

"Okay," he says, hands clenching the steering wheel. "Okay."

"How was it?" my mom asks all bright and cheery.

I shrug and open the fridge. "Okay."

"Did he give you my check?"

"No." I grab an apple, slam the fridge door, and she groans and swears beneath her breath. I can't take this. "I'm going for a quick bike ride."

"Fine." She's already turned away, picking up the phone. "Be back in time for dinner."

My rear brakes squeak whenever I press the grip. It sounds like cats scared behind a tavern somewhere. For a second while I'm pumping up the hill towards Bangor, I imagine you driving by in a big old truck. It's red, an antique Ford, I think. You lean out and wave to me. I get inside. You pick up my bike and haul it into the back like it weighs nothing.

"How was your day?" you ask.

"Okay."

You push a brown bag towards me. There's a Veggie Delite from Subway inside it. "My favorite."

You wink and just keep driving.

You drop me off at the track. Paolo Mattias is rushing around it, long legs smashing records like he did in eighth grade. Paolo sees you drive away.

"That your dad?" he asks.

"Yeah," I say.

"Wow." His eyes light up and you can just tell that he's thinking how amazing it would be to have a dad like you, like John Wayne, a hero kind of dad. "Cool."

Mr. Wayne, just tell me something. Why does being alive have to hurt so much? You must know. I've seen that look in your face on the TV screen when they replay your movies. I've seen your face, Mr. Wayne, and I can tell that you know something about pain. You watch the sunset. You watch the movie men, the Italian Indians. I know you know something about it. So tell me, Mr. Wayne. Why does being alive have to hurt so much?

Since my father forgot to feed me after the engine show, I race to the kitchen as soon I'm back from biking. The apple didn't do it. I'm hoping that my mom's made beef stew for tonight. I love beef stew, especially the carrots and the potatoes all coated with gravy stuff. But there isn't a Crock-Pot on the counter. I can't smell anything cooking. A package of stew meat sits on the counter, unopened. Food poisoning waiting to happen.

"Mom!" I yell. "I'm home. What's for dinner?"

There's no answer. Maybe she's been kidnapped, I think, but, c'mon, really. Who would kidnap my mother? Still, I throw myself down and shimmy across the linoleum of the kitchen floor. Inching forward, I listen for the bad guys ... Saddle up.

"Mom?" I take a chance, call again.

"I'm in here." Her voice comes from our living room.

"Are you alone?"

"What?"

I can tell by her tone she's alone, so I stand up and head for her. She's sitting in the tall yellow chair with the roses on it looking out the picture window. Her face is splotchy and three quiet tears are dropping down her cheeks. First, I think that someone, maybe my Nana, has died. But she isn't sobbing. She would be sobbing if someone died. When my stepfather died, she sobbed and sobbed and clutched me and moaned that our world was over and we'd never survive without him.

All I wanted to do was run away, then. I know this is awful and I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but it's true. It's true. My face mashed into her shirt, and it was too soft and close. Her hands clung to my back and she shook and shook. I kept wanting to push her away and run to this special place I have in the woods where all these ferns grow and the light streams down in big golden rays, slanting through the trees. I wanted that more than anything, the peace there.

I'm sure that's how you've felt a few times, like when your second wife turned out to be a prostitute and a drunk and she waved that gun in your face when you came home. I bet you wanted to just go by the ocean somewhere or the desert, and have a drink or two, alone. But you didn't, did you? You stood there like a man and you faced up to your troubles, that's what you did.

That's what I did too.

My mother isn't sobbing now. There's just those three tears. I hope that maybe it's just that Mike O'Donnell isn't coming. I cross my fingers. I think about the newspaper headlines. One Man Dead In Fight. Maybe he's been arrested. I want to bounce around like a G-rated goofball and say, "Oh happy day! Oh happy day!"

I don't. Instead, I switch back into the role of your daughter in that movie where you fight the oil fires. I'm strong and good and kind.

"What's wrong?" I ask and touch her shoulder. It trembles.

"I don't want to tell you."

"Oh," I say. "Okay. You don't have to."

I know what that's like, not wanting to tell someone what's wrong, because if you tell them it isn't a relief. It just makes it more real, or maybe if you tell them they'll pity you, and when you add someone's pity onto your own sadness it's like all the strings inside of you become untuned, stretched too tight, and you can feel them ready to snap apart if anyone says anything, or if you even move.

Even though I know that, I swallow. I swallow big and hard, and all the grit from those oil fires feels like it's stuck there.

I'm not sure if that's true, but it sounds good.

My mom hiccups. I notice that her eyes stare right ahead. I wonder why she hasn't looked at me. Maybe she's in a coma. Or shock. What do I do if she's in shock? I try to remember what we learned in health class in eighth grade.

"Are you cold?" I ask. "Maybe you should lie down on the floor. I'll get a pillow for under your head."

I imagine new headlines. Quick-Thinking Girl Saves Mother From Shock.

Her hand lifts from the armrest and flutters at me like I'm a bug she's brushing away, which is an absolutely evil thing to do no matter how upset she is. I turn.

"No, Liliana." The fluttering hand grabs my forearm, and it's surprisingly strong. "I'm not cold. I'm sorry. It's just ... your sister ..."

"What about her?"

"She's ... oh. I don't know. It's probably nothing."

My mother stares into my eyes. It looks like little red snakes are stretching all around her eyeballs. She's been crying more than three tears. She must have been crying hard before I came home. I never should have left. I should have stayed here and protected her.

"What happened?" I fix her with my gaze. It's the same gaze you would use to get horses to listen to you. I call it the trainer gaze.

My mother always submits to it. "She came over and she had this bruise. A very large bruise. All on the left side of her chin."

"A bruise?"

The clock chimes on the wall. I stare at it, trying to figure out what the damn numbers mean.

"Brian hit her?"

My mother lifts her hand like it weighs a hundred tons. "She says her jaw was locked and Brian had to hit it to unlock it. Her jaw does that."

"What a lie."

"We don't know that."

"He is such a freaking jerk." I scoop up an unlit cigarette that's been dropped on the floor. Outside, there are crows chasing a hawk above the big pine tree at the end of the yard.

"Liliana!" She holds out her hand for the cigarette. "Ladies don't use that sort of language. I have never said that word in my entire life."

"What's your point, Mom? It makes you holy or something? Her husband is beating on her and you're all pissed off about me using the f-word. Yeah, right on the scale of things, that's the big crime, huh? Jesus. It wasn't even the real f-word. I said 'freaking.'"

I toss the cigarette at her and walk from my mother's chair across the living room to the door of the family room that used to be a garage. It's cozy, with big barn beams on the ceiling, bricks on the wall and a Franklin stove. I don't go in there though. Instead, I just do stupid little manic laps around the yellow living room, the color of a bruise that's almost healed.

"Jesus Christ," I say.

My sister is fifteen years older than I am. She married Brian when I was three.

"She said her jaw was locked. She wouldn't lie," my mom says. She stands up and puts hands on my shoulders to make me stare into her face. I'm taller than she is. I grew two inches last year. She is so short. "She wouldn't lie to me."

"Mom. Everyone. Always. Lies."

She drops her hands. Her face crumples, but I ignore it and start towards the family room to get the laptop. I have a report to do. I'll have to go through the living room to get back to my bedroom. I don't want to do this report stuff at the kitchen table. Not right now. My mother checks the top of the piano for dust, brushing her fingers really slowly along the dark wood and inspecting.

"Maybe you should call Dad if you're so worried," I say.