![]() “The Botanical Gardens, left parking lot, back under the big cypress trees.” Billy’s eyes were shining as he and my husband jumped into the car to rescue the wandering Camaro. The flowers were lovely, but would need trimming soon. I twisted the dishtowel in my hands and wandered over to the azaleas, my anger spluttered away. After all, how do you lose a car, for Pete’s sake? These kids, I started fuming, good lord, look at me, standing out here in the driveway trying to figure out where this fool kid lost his car. “Oh, all right,” I grabbed the dish towel and stomped out onto the driveway. His eyebrows crinkled together and he sniffed. It’s not like it was under a cushion in the living room couch. PATREON SUPERPOWERED HOW TO“Billy, I can’t find your car.” I had no idea even how to start. “Ma-ah-am, puh-leeeze.” Billy’s face had that lost teddy look around his eyes. ![]() The next morning Billy looked at me across the breakfast table. It had gone missing, like things sometimes do. I didn’t think it was stolen, or if it was they didn’t drive it off after all, it’s not like it ran. Of course, that car wasn’t there in the morning, and no, the cops hadn’t towed it. “And it wouldn’t start, so I left it on Maybell Ave.” “It’s gone,” Billy slumped into the opposing chair. The chair creaked as he leaned back on two legs. “Where’s the Camaro?” My husband spun a cup of coffee in a wet ring on the kitchen table. I had not heard the engine I was not surprised. “Yep, and he may make it around the block,” my husband said, but I could tell he didn’t believe it.Ī couple of hours later, Billy dragged himself into the kitchen. “Well, he made it to the end of the street,” I said. I craned my neck to see him round the turn at the end of the block. Billy climbed into the driver’s seat and buckled his seat belt, checked his rear-view mirror, and inched the scaly beast out the driveway. “No?” I peered out the kitchen window, and sure enough the hood of the car was vibrating and colored smoke was billowing from the back. It sat in the driveway shivering and moaning like an ailing armadillo. He wouldn’t emerge until his dad extracted him like a sore tooth, with nearly as much wailing. He would barrel into the house every day after school, throw his bag on the floor, shove a sandwich into his face, dive out the front door, and slide home under the long hood of that car. It was his pride and joy, and it almost ran. My son, Billy, had this Camaro that he had been working on for nearly two years. The Camaro incident was the first real inkling that finding was my superpower. “It’s right here, next to the weed whacker.” It was a puzzle to me, how I could find things and they couldn’t. I’d wander around the garage, dish towel in my hand, lifting up the dead batteries and swishing around the half-filled oil pans, and sure as little green aliens it would appear. “You lost it you find it, dammit,” But I’d always give in and look. “How should I know? I don’t even know what color it is.” ![]() “Hon, have you seen my garpledeybip?” Like I knew what that was. I’m dead certain it was my kids and husband that finally forced it into the open. It was always below the surface, in the backwaters of my brain, just waiting. Artwork from Flickr and used under a Creative Commons Attribution license. ![]()
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