Dad'll Fix it

Thoughts | Tehlan Lenius

Illustration by Alex Eun, @alex.eun

Dad’ll Fix It 

In loving memory of Buh 

Dad grew up on a farm and he never let us forget it. Every morning he’d talk about how the eggs in the city were washed out, and the air was stale, and the milk tasted off, and everyone was always in so much of a hurry to get nowhere that they never stopped to smell the roses. Oscar and Joseph would groan loudly at the breakfast table, grumbling to themselves about how no one cared, which was mostly true. Even Mom would get tired of it sometimes, rolling her eyes along with us. I didn’t care either, not really, but I tried to pay attention anyway for Dad’s sake. 

It was easy to forget that he wasn’t raised here—that for him, home was a place he couldn’t go back to. There was nothing left for him over there, and he didn’t see any point in reminiscing about something that was long gone, or as he put it, dwelling on the past. He always looked forward, never back, because that’s the kind of person he had to be growing up, but I think a part of him still really missed the farm, and his love for it came out in other ways—namely complaints about air quality and noise pollution. 

The thing Dad hated most about the city was how unfriendly people could be. In his town, everyone knew everyone, and they were all kind to each other. During the war, he said that his neighbors would give part of their rations to him and his brother and sister. He said that people were friendly when they could be, even in hard times, but in the city no one made the effort. 

“You be kind to people, Heidi,” he told me once while we were in his workshop. He was down on one knee, busy measuring out planks of wood for the dining room table that he was building for Mom. That’s how I always think of him—dust and dirt under his fingernails, working with his hands, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he measured and cut and built.

Dad could do that—create something out of nothing. I liked to watch him work sometimes, even if he usually didn’t talk much. I sat on his spinny stool, gripping the top of the work bench and swiveling this way and that while my legs swung back and forth underneath me. 

“You be kind and you do it because you should,” he said as he stood up and reached into the toolbox beside him. “You don’t need a reason.” 

I didn’t give much thought to what he said. It went in one ear and out the other. After a little while, Joseph called to say that they were going to start a game of cops and robbers and I was gone in a flash, hopping down from the stool and running off, my father’s wise advice long gone, but it didn’t matter. It would sink in, one way or another. Dad was always one to let actions speak louder than words, and at eight years old, actions were much easier to learn from. 

Every year, we took a month-long camping trip across Canada. Sometimes we’d go out East, to the coast, and others we’d go out West to the prairies. This year we were passing through Quebec, all our gear piled into the trailer and us kids in the back of the station wagon. I’m still not sure how those cars were legal. I’m pretty sure I have permanent physical damage from being thrown around by my brothers in the back. Once, Oscar and Joseph got into a wrestling match, yelling and kicking like someone was being murdered, and Mom and Dad didn’t even bat an eye. Maybe that was the point of station wagons, so parents could finally turn the other cheek and have a break. It sounded about right. 

If anything, the ignorance went both ways. Us kids had no idea what was going on up front—what Mom and Dad were talking about or how much longer we had to go. All we knew was that we were going somewhere, and we were going fast, flying down the two-lane highway at a hundred kilometers an hour—that is, until we noticed the landscape outside begin to slow down.

“Hey, why’re we stopping?” Oscar asked loudly as our car pulled into the patch of dirt between the road and the grassy fields that rolled out beyond. I opened my mouth to echo the question, but shut it a second later, the answer sliding into view right there in front of us. 

A car was broken down ten feet away, the tire lying on the floor and the rim of the wheel naked and exposed. I leaned over the backseat and peered through the front windshield, trying to get a better look as Mom and Dad got out of the car and approached the couple standing helplessly by the tire. 

“What are they doing out there?” Joseph asked. 

“I have to pee,” Oscar announced loudly in place of an answer, to which Joseph promptly scowled and smacked him on the back of the head. 

“Then get out of the car and go into the grass.” 

“No, Mom and Dad are talking to people out there. I’m not peeing in front of strangers like some kind of neanderthal.” 

“Well, you’re not peeing in here, that’s nasty.” 

“You’re nasty, maybe I’ll just pee on you—” 

Shoving ensued, followed by protests and more arguments that I tuned out as I focused my attention on the situation unfolding outside. 

Mom and Dad were talking to the two parents, gesturing emphatically and saying something that I couldn’t hear from this far away. I strained my ears to pick up something, anything, but I realized pretty quickly, and with a considerable amount of annoyance, that my brothers made that effort completely useless. I almost turned around and told them to shut up when Dad started to walk back to the car. 

I scrambled to the front.

“What’s going on?” I asked, “What’s wrong with their car?” 

Dad didn’t respond, he just nodded and opened the door, holding out his hand until I took it and let him pull me out onto the side of the highway. We walked to the stranded stranger’s car, Mom still talking to the man, whose eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, a big black bushy mustache hiding his mouth as he talked. He wasn’t speaking English, I realized, watching both of them gesture again. Mom was saying something about how it was no big deal, it wasn’t a problem — really— while the man shook his head. 

“Schau, Heidi,” Dad said, crouching down beside me and pointing to one of the intact tires. “Do you see the little round holes in the rims?” 

I nodded. 

“Those are lug nuts. They keep the tire attached to the car. These ones popped out and the tire fell off.” Dad pointed to the holes, one at a time. “There are four, but you can drive on three if you need to, for a little while, which is what we’re going to do.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“We are taking the lug nuts off the three tires on the trailer and giving them to the couple. Come on.” He stood up and went back to the car, opening up the door to the backseat and rummaging around while I ran to catch up, still processing what he had said. 

“How will we drive then? Won’t our wheels fall off?” 

“We only need three, I told you,” he repeated, coming back out with a funny looking wrench and a car jack. “Help me with the wheels.” 

We went around to the trailer hitched to the back of our car, and Dad showed me how to unscrew the lug nuts from the tires. We took one from each, three in total, before returning to the broken-down car. The man saw us coming and immediately stepped forwards, saying something

that I didn’t understand—but I didn’t need to. He was shaking his head and waving his hands in the universal sign for no. Unfortunately for him, Dad had already made up his mind and there was no changing it. 

Dad pushed past without a word, not even acknowledging that someone was trying to stop him, leaving the mustache man stuttering as he clamored to put up another defense. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Non, non, we cannot ask you this,” he went on. But it didn’t matter that he was speaking English; Dad wasn’t listening and he had already started lifting the car with the jack. I felt a little bad for the silent treatment that the mustache man was getting, and piped up. 

“Don’t worry,” I assured him, and his gaze snapped towards me. “Dad’ll fix it.” I’m not sure if the man understood me. He was staring, dumbfounded, eyes going back and forth between me and my father before he finally turned back to my mother, pulling a paper and a pen from his pocket and beginning to insist on something. 

I sat down on the ground and watched Dad work like I did back in the shop, listening to the little instructions he’d throw out about how to release the jack, or how to use the wrench. When we were done, he stood up and put his hands on his hips, satisfied, and I did the same, stealing a glance over at him to make sure I had the stance right—feet shoulder width apart—before turning my gaze to the tire and admiring his work. 

“Thank you.” The mustache man was back, a helpless gratitude marooned on his face as he stared at the tire in mild disbelief. “Thank you.” 

Dad nodded and they shook hands, and that was that. We headed back to the car, where I climbed into the back, my parents in the front, and we all waved out the window as we

pulled out onto the road, watching the couple wave back until they became specks in the distance. 

We found a hardware store in the next town and put the fourth lug nuts back on our trailer wheels, continuing on with our trip. That August, when we came home, there was an envelope on the front doorstep. We almost didn’t notice it, lost in the bustle of unpacking as we carried stuff in from the car, Joseph yelling to ask where he should put the sleeping bags and Oscar running up the stairs with thundering footsteps to add a rock from the coast to his rock collection. 

I dropped off a box full of camping supplies in the front hall, stepping back onto the front porch and picking up the envelope before running into the kitchen and showing it to Mom. “Thanks, Heidi,” she said, confusion creasing her features as she took a closer look at it, weighing it suspiciously in her hand. But when she opened the envelope, her expression melted into a smile and she laughed, shaking her head. Dad came in to see what was up, sliding the box that he was carrying onto the kitchen table. Mom passed by him on her way out to the hall, slapping the envelope against his chest and saying, “See Vic, there’s still hope for the world,” in the teasing way that she did with Dad. 

Dad looked inside and smiled a faint half smile—the kind that was all in the eyes. “Let me see,” I insisted, my curiosity getting the best of me as I reached up impatiently. He handed me the envelope and I opened it up, peering past the paper. 

Inside, there were three lug nuts, a $20 bill, and no return address.