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After I launched a 1979 Chrysler Newport between threads
of electrical lines and into the neighbor’s stone wall,

my dad and I rebuilt it—stone by stone—in two hours
flat, and I quit driving. It was only my third week

on the road alone, and I had totaled the large green car
respectfully called The Tank. No

convincing could lure me back to the wheel, not even
my mom’s new Honda. But that winter, my father

took me to an empty parking lot on an early Sunday,
with five inches of untouched snow. He spun the wheel

and lifted his hands, looked over at me as my shoulder
banged up against the window, turned three times

around. The surrounding buildings blurred,
the snow blasted light in the swirl and sun with each

uncontrolled turn. I realized, then, that in the spin,
there was a lesson, dizzy and unobstructed.

I don’t remember my father braking. We just slid around
the lot until we stopped, both still breathing.