With Lucy’s shoe tucked away in the glove box so Jace wouldn’t have to keep looking at it, he lazily watched the passing landscape of Kettle Road as he and his uncle made the long journey to the item’s owner’s house, back in Desert Tree. The era’s pop music was playing on the radio, but at a very low volume this time.

“What’s the plan?” Jace eventually asked.

“What do you mean?” Wes replied, resting on an arm as he drove with the other.

“To get the stupid shoe back to her without being caught, duh.”

“Uh, I dunno. I guess I’ll just walk up to the front door, drop it off, knock, and leave? What’s to plan? This is a simple errand. I thought I implied that.”

“Nothing’s been simple up to now… That’s all.”

“Well, this is where things turn around for us. You’ll see.”

“Yeah, right…” Jace let out a bigger sigh than usual. “You’re the adult. You’re supposed to plan stuff, but things always become hot garbage when you’re in charge.”

“Buddy,” Wes replied at a stoplight, “not everything is planned out. Not every little thing needs a plan. Don’t obsess too much trying to give order to chaos.”

“But we’re in the past! Anything we do could screw up the present. You should be acting like a scientist or something, being really careful and planning everything out.”

“Jace. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Adults aren’t these indomitable, perfect people. Yeah, we all think that when we’re young, that our parents are the best and invincible to failure, and they’re there to write the guidebook of your life, but none of that is really true. Adults are just kids who have discovered cynicism.”

“What are you talking about? I’m just asking you to be more careful.”

“I’m making a point here. Do you still believe in Santa?”

“What?” Jace had no idea what he was trying to tell him, so without knowing a proper way to argue, he could only reply with, “Uh, no. Not really.”

“Okay. Well, Santa is part of the ‘plan’ we all perceive our parents of having. He’s another element of the storybook they desperately want to write for us. Then you realize it was your parents putting the gifts under the tree the whole time. But that’s okay, since they’ll still get you anything you ask for. If they don’t, then it’s just because they forgot. Until you understand the concept of money, what they need to buy you your presents.”

“Uncle Wes, I really don’t care about this stuff right now.”

After the light turned green and Wes got back to driving, he continued, “I’m saying adults have flaws often worth forgiving. It’s more important that they keep trying to be a good dad or mom. That brings us to something I’ve been wanting to touch on.”

Jace looked at him. “Please don’t start talking about my dad again.”

“I won’t. But I do want to know how things have been going between you two recently. You usually don’t tell me when I ask, but now we’re stuck in a car together.”

“Everything’s fine. I only stay at his house every other weekend. Sometimes. We watch movies and go places. He’s nice to me. We don’t talk about Mom.”

“Do you… keep anything over there?”

“No. All I have is a room and a bed. It’s like a sleepover. He calls me ‘buddy’ a lot, just like you do. Sometimes he tries to throw a football around. That’s the only thing I don’t like doing. Just because he doesn’t like Mom doesn’t mean we don’t get along. I know he screws up sometimes, but he tries to make up for it.”

A little surprised, Wes hesitated before replying, “You’re… much more mature than I was at your age, at least about our… similar situation.”

“I know. I’ve been around your kid self, remember?”

“But, still, some adults make good parents, but not good partners. The way your dad treated my sister when you were younger, maybe before you can remember… I can’t forgive him for that. And she really should change your last name to her own.”

“Jace Elaine? Ew. That doesn’t sound right. Not at all. Can we stop talking about this now? Every time you bring up my dad, you just get angry.”

Wes wanted to argue that fact and say more, he but had to admit, Jace was right.

Taking advantage of the lull and hoping to change the subject before Wes might have started talking about his dad again, Jace thought of something to talk about.

“So, um… I saw a few episodes of the old Rugrats, and I was wondering… So, Angelica can understand and talk to both the babies and the parents, right?”

“Yeah. That’s how things work in that universe.”

“And she’s like, three years old, right?”

“Uh-huh. And mean and selfish. But nonetheless a great, iconic character.”

“But doesn’t it imply that she could translate what the babies are saying to their parents? What if the real world was like that? It would be crazy. And what age do kids in that show… How old are they when they can’t understand babies anymore? And here’s the freakiest thing of all. When she becomes an adult, will she remember that she used to talk with babies? What if she becomes a scientist and studies why she had the ability?”

“Whoa, Jace. You got some sharp critical thinking skills. But not everything in a kid’s show is going to make sense or needs to be thought about. If you’re still a youthful lad yourself and you’re already thinking about stuff like that… I dunno, bud. You might grow up trying to look behind the curtain of everything.”

“Is that bad?”

“It might not help your making-friends situation. At least not if you start out that way whenever they talk about something they like.” Things were quiet for a few blocks, until Wes returned to the topic. “Anyway, at least you and your dad seem to get along.”

“Not this again.”

“Don’t worry, I’m just going to talk about myself for a second. But for a reason! I swear. I’m trying to explain why I’m always so concerned about you and your dad.”

“Oh, goody! I get to hear about my uncle’s amazing childhood again.”

Wes didn’t respond with a snarky remark this time. After some awkward seconds of silence, Jace turned and saw that he seemed to be deeply contemplative.

“It’s… because we’re going to your mom’s house. You’ve never seen the inside of it aside from a few photos—and I’m sure she hasn’t told you much about her time there. I know she was treated well and everything. Spoiled, probably. I hated the place. Every time I visited, I was reminded of this rift between the two sides of my family.”

“It’s kind of a nice place, isn’t it?”

“A bit. Not that Desert Tree had any mansions, but the house was definitely in its nice, ‘luxury’ corner. And everything about that house… The look, how clean it was, even how it smelled… I dunno, it was all fake to me, like it wasn’t lived in. Like you couldn’t leave your mark on it. My house had personality, all these little nicks and scratches and imperfections. I guess it’s because their place was built the same year they bought it, so it was brand new. Mine was built with the rest of the neighborhood, so it was older, lived in. Hers was manufactured off a factory line. Maybe I just have a bias against all houses built past the 70s, really. They’re too… perfect, sterile. Cold.

“But it’s just a house. My main reason for not liking it were the people who lived in it. I hated my dad’s second wife as a kid. As an adult, I know that hating anyone is a waste of passion and energy, but kids hate things all the time, or at least think they do. It’s the only way they know how to express one side of their strongest feelings. You still hate some stuff, right? If you do, it’s probably because you don’t understand that thing.”

“I still hate my stupid once-friends because they became jerks.”

“Yeah, well, then you get where I’m coming from. I haven’t felt this way for a long time, but I hated going to Lucy’s. Her mom didn’t like me at all. Thought I was a delinquent, even though I didn’t get in trouble all that often. And Dad pretended to like me. He tried as hard as he could to make us ‘friends,’ without actually trying. Sure, he gave me presents. Took me and Luce to movies. Even played video games with me.

“But he also bought me things I already had or didn’t want, paid no attention to film ratings—me and your mom experienced our share of violence and language at the cineplex—and he was a sore loser as a gamer. Here was a guy in his forties who would actually rage quit when I beat him. He even broke a few controllers over the years.”

“Your dad couldn’t have been all bad…”

“No. I mean, he did try. Superficially. Like, he never put any effort into getting to know me. Never asked me about my day or showed any interest in my own interests. But I’m sure he thought he was doing a good job. Never belittled me. Didn’t even make me do chores at his house other than cleaning my plate after dinner. And that was only twice a month, as literally every Saturday I was over, we had pizza delivered. Every one.”

“I don’t actually remember even meeting my mom’s parents…”

“Nope. And that says a lot. They only ever saw you when you were a baby.”

Without warning, at a stoplight by yet another Kettle strip mall, everything in the car suddenly shut off. Wes immediately tried to restart the engine without so much as a curse word, but without success. It was like the Honda made no effort to run.

“Aw, crap,” he moaned and tried the hazard lights, which thankfully still worked. As red turned to green and traffic moved around him, he sighed, “Eddie let us down.”

“Eddie? Who’s Eddie? You got the car from a guy named Odie, didn’t you?”

“Oh. Yeah. Eddie, Odie… Whatever. Guess Ol’ Odie wasn’t all that ‘Onest.” Wes looked around at the nearby businesses, and to his fortune, there just so happened to be an auto-repair chain on the right. “I’m guessing it’s the alternator. If they don’t have any in stock, we might be out of a car for the next few days.”

“What?! How are we going to go to King Arcade tomorrow? Or back to our room? What if we can’t even get back to the present?”

“Jace, relax. There are taxis and buses. Now get out and push.”

“I’ll tell Mom you made me push a car in busy traffic.”

“I was kidding! Haven’t you memorized what my jape face looks like yet? Just stay there. I’ll rescue us. Your uncle’s a hero! A hero with disposable money!”

Jace rolled his eyes. Wes waited for another red light, got out, and with the kind of effort that reminded him that he was out of shape, pushed the car from the doorframe and guided it into the plaza entrance on the intersection’s other road.

“Hoo-boy,” the young country boy mechanic outside the garage greeted Wes as he wiped off oil from his fingers with a dirty cloth. “Saw the whole thing. Ya’ll got lucky, huh? Yer car sure picked a good place to break down, save ya a tow.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, could we make this quick? We got places to be.”

“Sure, sure. I mean, we’ll do our best. Well, hey, fella,” the mechanic said to Jace through the closed passenger window. “Why didn’t ya get out and push for your dad?”

Jace groaned, heavily.