guided her over to where a floor model sat gleaming on the top shelf in a Wal-Mart display. “He’ll get hurt.”
“Nonsense, he can probably walk faster than that thing can go, and anyway it has seatbelts. Safety first, you know.” He laughed and pointed at the specifications on one of the boxes.
“And it’s way too expensive,” Catherine responded, not willing to give up the battle just because of a little laughter.
“Yeah, it’s more than the bikes we got for the other kids,” Willard agreed, “but not that much more. And besides…”
“And besides, you always wanted something like that when you were a kid, didn’t you?” This time Catherine laughed.
“Okay, you caught me. But they didn’t make motorized cars then. The only thing we had were clunky, pedal- driven sedans and fire-trucks. One of the kids on my block had one when I was six or seven and it broke my heart that I didn’t.
“Of course, when he let me try once, I was almost too big and the pedals stuck and I ended up pushing it along with my feet, which wasn’t all that much fun. But it was the principal of the thing.”
Catherine was silent for a second before she sighed and nodded. “All right. At least we live in a safe neighborhood now. No one racing up and down the streets.”
The car came home with them that day.
The moment he opened the huge box on Christmas morning, Sams seemed possessed by the car. He sat in it through all the morning festivities, even though the battery hadn’t been connected and not even the horn would work. He sat in it mock-steering and making his own hooting horn sounds while the rest of the family trooped out to the garage to be surprised by their own sets of wheels, bicycles in a variety of styles, colors, and sizes. He wanted to sit in it when Catherine called everyone in for the traditional Christmas breakfast of freshly baked cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate.
“No you don’t, buster. No spilling on my brand new carpet,” Catherine had said, trying to sound stern but failing so miserably that both she and Sams burst out in hysterical laughter.
But he was allowed to take it outside right after breakfast and, while the other three pedaled up and down Oleander Place, occasionally joined by other small riders on other pristine bicycles, Sams drove his Vette in tight little circles on the driveway, beeping away and waving at Catherine every time he passed her standing by the garage door.
It had been a very good Christmas.
By early February, Sams was allowed to ride not only on the driveway but for three yard-lengths on each side of Oleander. At the end of the rose border on one side, he would dutifully turn around-staying carefully on the sidewalk-and ride back around, past his own driveway, and down the other side to where the white picket fence began, then turn around and repeat the process.
Left to himself, he would probably have been happy to putt around all day. Still, an hour or so in the afternoons usually satisfied him.
2
Willard was in a hurry when he backed out of the garage early that Friday evening.
He had just gotten home-a couple of hours before usual, as it turned out, since his current project had been abruptly cancelled. He wasn’t in a particularly good mood because of the interruption in his routine, but he was happy to be able to spend some more time with the kids. He wasn’t generally around in the afternoons when they arrived home from school.
He was just settling in to work on a jigsaw puzzle in the family room with Will, Jr., Burt, and Suze, when he heard Catherine yelp from the kitchen.
Roaches was his first thought. But no elongated scream followed the short outburst, so he tentatively relaxed.
“Willard,” Catherine called. No terror in her voice, just the everyday we’ve-got-a-minor-crisis pitch that any parent of small children might recognize.
He rose, careful not to disturb the scattered puzzle pieces, and made his way through a small disaster area of roll-and push-toys that Sams hadn’t gotten around to putting away.
“What is it?” he called…just as he got the first whiff of smoke-thick, cloying, unmistakable. “What’s wrong?” This time there was more urgency in his voice.
“Oh, nothing. Just this da…this stupid waffle iron. Again!”
The family-sized waffle iron was a virtual antique, the final fossilized relic of their wedding reception. It was a gift from one of Catherine’s aunts, who gave one-identical in make and model-to each of her nine nephews and nieces as they married. Originally gleaming in chrome and black, the iron was now stained and streaked by spatters of ancient grease and the baked-on spilled-over remains of thousands of pancakes and waffles, all seemingly impervious to even Catherine’s meticulous close-inspection cleaning.
Recently, it had begun taking forever for the heating element to get hot enough, and when the orange alert light finally went out, the resulting waffles were more often than not irregular, burned on one edge, half-raw on the other.
Now it sat on the countertop, its cord coiled sinuously over the tiles, its plug hanging like something dead over the edge of the stainless-steel sink, and the plastic cover of the outlet just above it blackened with a smear of greasy smoke.
“I just plugged it in, and the outlet sparked and then spurted flame. I yanked the plug and everything stopped. But I think the iron has finally shorted out.”
“It’s about time,” Willard said. “It’s old enough. Must have at least a hundred thousand miles on it by now.” He leaned over the counter to give the offending appliance a cursory inspection. “What about spaghetti for dinner?”
“I’ve already promised the kids their favorite waffles. They’ve really been helpful today. And they like them so much. Everything’s ready…except the iron.”
The kids called Catherine’s waffles Super-waffles. Willard glanced down the countertop and saw a row of little bowls already set out, filled with grated cheese, bacon bits, slivered walnuts, and chocolate chips. Each of the kids requested a special combination of ingredients, baked into the crispy waffles, then topped with maple syrup, raspberry jelly, or peanut butter and honey.
Some of their choices set Willard’s teeth on edge, but the kids loved them.
“I guess I could run on down to Sav-on and see if they have an iron available,” Willard said.
“They do,” Catherine responded, perhaps a bit too quickly. “I saw one just the other day. I was going to buy it but hoped this one would last a little longer. I probably should have known better.”
Willard sighed and shrugged. “Okay, let me get my coat and wallet. I won’t be gone long.”
“And while you’re there, would you pick up some dessert,” Catherine added as he disappeared down the hall.
She turned back to mixing the waffle batter.
Neither of them saw Sams standing in the kitchen doorway, listening intently.
3
It took a couple of minutes for Willard to slip on his winter jacket, rummage through his suit pants for his wallet, convince the three children still seated around the jigsaw puzzle that they really would have more fun staying at home this time rather than tagging along to the store, and finally step into the garage.
Almost instantly, he felt a surge of anger flood through him.
He knew that he had lowered the double-sized garage door when he got home earlier. He distinctly remembered thumbing the remote and watching in the rear-view mirror as the heavy wooden panel slid down, then
