Who's Your Daddy? by Lynda Sandoval

haven.
    Sure, I used to feel left out when I was little and all my friends were watching cartoons that were off-limits to me, but I got over it. Now I don’t even have the urge to watch television. No. Really. I don’t.
    I don’t judge other people for how they choose to spend their free time, but the whole television thing seems like an egregious waste of time to me.
    That’s just me. Life is a choice.
    I swear, though, sometimes I feel like my peers’ heads are so full of this television show or that movie,this new hot star or that reality show (a concept I can’t quite grasp, even though Lila has tried to explain it to me on more than one occasion), that they forget to just sit back and think about things. Life, themselves, world events, the future, the universe, goals. I know I’m eccentric, but I like being different, and I like thinking about all these subjects and more.
    So, anyway, I was driving down Meadow Brook Road, watching carefully for deer or elk on the road and doing exactly that—thinking about stuff—when all of a sudden I heard this big
POW
, and my car screeched and swerved a little. A surge of adrenaline pushed my heart into my throat, and I steered the car over to the rocky shoulder. I could hear the flap-flap-flapping as I drew to a stop, and there was no mistaking the unusual lopsidedness to my car. Damn, a flat.
    I’d never had a flat before. Why now?
    My palms started to sweat and tears stung my eyes. It wasn’t because I was afraid of changing a tire, per se. I just wasn’t too thrilled to have to change my tire on a pitch black mountain road, alone, in the middle of the night. Naturally, I heard an animal howl off in the distance, because it was just the perfect thing to feed myfears. Right at that moment, I wished like crazy that my parents believed in cell phones.
    I knew the tire wasn’t going to change itself, but I still couldn’t bring myself to get out of the car. What a chicken! I had been born and raised in the mountains, and I usually liked the silence and the darkness.
Usually
. The inky sky made a much better backdrop for the stars than the light-polluted city sky down in Denver. But the same inky sky felt foreboding as I sat there with a flat tire and a fast heartbeat.
    Trying to steady myself and squelch my fears, I glanced up into the sky and tried to convince myself of how much I loved the darkness. I took a deep breath and picked out some of my favorite constellations. Ursa Major was easy to find. Always is. I think of it as the layman’s constellation, because even though it’s the third largest, it’s mainly known as the home of the Big Dipper, which makes me feel kind of sad for it. All that vastness and really only one claim to fame.
    I was happy to see Orion, master of the winter skies, already, considering it was only late September. I’ve always liked the mythological story behind Orion and the picture it puts in my head. Orion is said to lord overthe heavens from late fall to early spring, with his hunting dog, Sirius, trailing at his feet.
    How cute. I love dogs.
    I smiled as I picked out the three stars which form Orion’s belt: Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnitak. As always, I felt awed by their presence. I just think it’s amazing that even the Bible makes reference to these stars, and yet here they are, steadfast in the twenty-first century. That constancy over thousands of years makes me realize what a minuscule part of the universe my little life is.
    Stargazing was making me feel better, though I still had a flat to deal with. I knew I’d deal with it better if I was calm, so I kept my eyes aimed upward. Tonight was the transit date of the principal star of Andromeda, so I searched for and found it as well. That was a mistake, though, because it made me think of the story behind it, which made me think of Lila getting busted, which got me all upset and worried once again.
    See, Andromeda was the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia, and Cassiopeia was