It’s late at night. We are in bed. Holding hands. Pondering quietly the reality that has smacked us squarely in the face. Neither of us speaks for nearly an hour. I listen to him breath. I play the evening over and over again in my mind. I wonder to myself, is this real. God, I hope this is real.

Finally he speaks. Well that happened fast, didn’t it?

Yeah, I guess it did, I responded.

So….we’re going to be parents then? Dam that’s rad.

Yeah, it is, huh?

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We were on vacation. 1992  maybe. I’d of been twelve that summer. Driving through Oklahoma. We’d stopped at Sonic, which he’d only mentioned about 73 times that day. Sonic. Jalapeno burgers. Cherry limeade. You could almost see it dancing in his eyes. His idea of heaven, if he were one to believe in such things.

We stopped at the first one we saw. We all ordered huge drinks and burgers. Chili cheese fries to share. We sat outside the car in the humid summer heat. The radio in the car was on. Turned to a silly country station, that he never would have normally made us listen too. Maybe it was Oklahoma that did it too him. Maybe it was Sonic. Who knows. My dad is an odd guy.

The moment was over before it really began.

He jumped up and started grabbing food and shoving it in the car in seconds. I didn’t recognize that look in his eyes. Get in the car now, he said. His voice was raised. He meant business. The man rarely raised his voice. We all got in the car. He drove away like a bat out of hell. He didn’t speak for 30 minutes.

We were all silent as well. No one said a thing, even though he was driving us back in the direction we’d just come from. Considering there were five of between 10 and 14 years old, this was a strange occurrence.

Eventually my step-mom broke the silence. What happened? Tornadoes, was his response. Headed our direction. The radio said tornadoes. More than one. Never again will I deal with tornadoes. Give me an earthquake any day.

It would have been funny, except it really wasn’t. On a vacation once, in Texas, my dad almost lost my mom because of tornadoes. She happened to be out shopping and she nearly died in a storm drain. It was about six months before they got pregnant with me. The town my grandparents lived in was over a third gone, after the tornadoes that day. Three major ones.

We will be going around Oklahoma today, was all he’d say.

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Family dinner. My family. His family. We’d ordered in. Mexican food. What? It wasn’t like I knew how to cook. Our new condo. It was the first time we’d had everyone there. There wasn’t enough seats for everyone, so a lot of people ended up sitting on the floor.

They believed it was to celebrate the condo. They’d brought us gifts. As we finished opening them, I got up and said, there is actually two more. Hold on one second. I went into our bedroom and came out with two gifts.

White satin wrapping. Purple and green ribbon. I remember that I’d spent an hour at some specialty shop in Beverly Hills, finding the prettiest paper I could find. I even made my friend Kate wrap them for me, because I wanted it to be perfect. One gift for his parents, one for my mom. Two picture frames.

Our butter bean in a frame. Ten weeks. Her first fuzzy photo. The frames said first grandchild.

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Same vacation. 1992. We’d been in Albuquerque the day before and had gone to Water World. I’d managed to step on a lit cigarette butt and had a blister the size of a fist on my foot. I have always been known for this type of thing. They should have just named me clumsy.

We were camping in Carlsbad. Had been swimming the night before. Every one told me to pop that blister, but I decided limping around was a better way to go. I didn’t want to miss walking down Carlsbad Caverns. I knew if I popped it, I’d not want to walk for days. See, I’d heard a rumor the night before, that Mario Lopez would be filming something at the bottom of the caves the next day. I wanted to meet him. Oh how I loved Saved by the Bell.

I was determined. I didn’t care how much it hurt. I did it anyway. Not because I cared about a silly cave. National monument? Who cares about that? I was twelve. I’d of rather been in a mall. Or at home, spending my days boogie boarding with my friends.

I could have cared less that it had an actual cafeteria at the bottom. I didn’t want to see bats. Or ride the weird elevator back to the top. Nope. I did it too see some cute famous boy.

Saw him too. Somewhere I even have a signed autograph. Totally worth the foot pain.

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