Tiny Pieces of Ice, by Doug McVadon

The tiny pieces of ice hit the windshield with a muted crunch, a soft noise that made the rest of the world seem strangely quiet and still. It was still and quiet in my head too, despite the jockeying for position in the pickup line. I snapped out of my reverie just soon enough to move forward in the line on Monroe Road, along with the other parents whose schedules were untimely ripped by the arrival of the ice storm.

I am immune to the struggle today. I am not trying to get ahead of the other cars. If it takes longer than I have planned, then I will be late for the chiropractor, hardly tragic. I suddenly stop noticing the “wintry mix” as the TV weatherpeople would have us call the sleet and rain, and start noticing my life. I am having a normal life. I am in line at the high school, waiting to pick up my kid. I am not doing anything else. I am glad to be doing this, I am glad that my daughter will remember, somewhere in the recesses of her cortex someday, that her daddy was there, that it wasn’t always mommy in the pickup line.

I am having a normal life, in spite of all those lost years. When I was working the assignment desk at Channel 36 I would send out reporters to cover the stories of the day, education, health, crime, and I would urge them to take an angle that would bring the story home to average people, you know, how it would affect their families, kids, homes, neighborhoods. 

But I didn’t think I was talking about myself as one of those affected people. After all, I was divorced at 29, renting not owning, my only child being raised by her mother 3000 miles away from me, no direct interest in public schools or public health issues, moving around in Charlotte every couple of years in unwitting echo of my itinerant upbringing. 

And to think I thought that was the real me. Not connected, not really caring, paid to be an observer of life, the life of others, not my life. It was a real wake-up when Melinda and I realized after we no longer worked in TV news, that we had no interest in watching the local news shows. We went from diligently working every day to put those news stories on the air, to openly ridiculing the same stories from the safety of our sofa. 

That was all some holding pattern, while I waited to land on my real life.

I call Meredith again to tell her I was getting closer. She answered with the unearned exasperation of a teenager, “yes, Dad.” It was 27 degrees and sleeting, school was closing early, I had stopped working to drive the minivan over to East Meck to fetch her, and I get the attitude, not the gratitude. Yes indeed, the normal life. And I am pleasant to my lovely and insolent daughter. She gets into the front seat, says a quick hello and starts checking her text messages, taking me totally for granted.

Am I developing the small mind I have sometimes attributed to minivan drivers of my own ilk? Probably, some kind of suburban euphoria has infected me, and the lure of the mainstream is beckoning. And I get a happy glow inside. I am picking up my girl and taking her home to momma, and she will be warm inside, and will play with her new dog in our little house that doesn’t stand out on our regular street.

Now I have to go to the drive-thru pharmacy—gotta have our drugs in case the ice keeps us indoors for days—and again I am a regular Dad, and I can’t help observing my normalcy. I was always outside looking in. In grade school in Key West or Jacksonville or Middletown I would see the moms and dads driving kids around and realize, they have lived here THEIR WHOLE LIVES. 

It was a strange and terrifying idea, to be stuck in one place and never to move. What about the bullies and the mean girls at school? My solution had always been simple, ignore them, don’t make eye contact, connect with the teachers and authority figures, they are the only ones who really care or count, and then we’ll move before I ever have to deal with them. I kissed Ramona on the lips in third grade, and it was a minor scandal. I think I saw her the next year and Marcia made fun of me about it, but the year after that we moved up to north Florida and I never saw her again. I couldn’t imagine having to see Ramona again in high school and have her remember me in my young and weak form. And I never did have to see anyone again, in any of my grades.

I occasionally wondered about living in one place for a long time. I wondered if I could have a favorite tree and watch it change as I grew up. I wondered if I could have a fort for more than one season, and what it might be like to build it bigger year after year. And shortcuts—all the other boys knew these shortcuts—I never knew a place well enough to develop my own shortcuts, or by the time I did, it was time to go.

I remember our 7th grade home in Middletown, Rhode Island, an idyllic farmhouse on six acres with a couple of horses and a fluffy Samoyed dog that came with the rental. After the duplex on the navy base in Mayport, it was like living in the country, in a mansion with animals and land, like we were royalty or something. And that was the first place I remember thinking, why can’t we just stay and live here? But it was too good to be true, dogs and horses and snow drifts up to the windows in winter and giant rocks to climb every day after school.

Besides, we had to get to California! That was our next destination, to 8th grade and beyond, in the Promised Land. So that’s where we drove in the summer of ’69, across the country to Dad’s new duty station, Moffett Field in Mountain View – it even sounded scenic. We stopped in Grand Canyon, our second time, and this time I was old enough to take the half-day mule trek into the canyon with Dad. I had a mule named Paradise, which the guide kept shouting to keep her in line. That was the name of the farm in Rhode Island, Paradise Farm, and the address was on Paradise Avenue, and I guess it was, paradise, I mean. A place to stay to grow up, a place I never knew.

And it was funny to me, the way people would say (as if they knew) “wow, it must be really hard moving around!” Compared to what, I would think, having to put up with all your so-called friends from first grade all the way through puberty—that’s a good thing?

And I would try to envy them their security and stability, but as a kid I just kept hearing about the terrorism. The terror of the boy next door who always threatened to beat you up, of teachers who seemed to have it in for you and compared you to your older siblings, of having to face the same kids year after year after they had seen one of your most embarrassing moments. It always seemed to me that moving away was the best solution.

Now, of course, I appreciate the stability and security of place and routine.

I have to deposit a check, so despite the weather I drive to the bank, knowing the way that will have less traffic. I park in the place I often do, less obvious access to the ATM, but easier to back out when I’m done. I pop into Starbucks to grab myself a cup and a Venti to bring to Melinda. They recognize me and strike up a conversation. I know where to get the stoppers when they neglect to put one in her cup lid; after all, I’m a regular here. Now I have to get lunch and I’ve decided today in the sleet there will be no line at the Valvoline oil change place on Randolph Road. I’m right of course, and it takes seemingly no time to get a fresh oil supply for the aging van.

My mind tells me, I know my way around here, I know the ropes, and I know how it’s done. Jane even tells me I dress like “someone from Charlotte.” 

Never thought I’d have the picket fence life. Neither did Melinda. She waited too long, and at 40 was on the road to spinsterhood, or so the story might have gone.

But now this normal life of school pickup lines, household errands and familiar places is mine. Twenty-two years in this town, almost 15 years in this house. The fire in the fireplace is going out. The dog is sleeping. My family has dozed off on the couch. And I am not thinking of getting away. I am not thinking about getting through this and on to the next thing. I am not thinking. I am here.