On I-81, a few miles south of Watertown, New York, our tire goes flat. It's a Friday afternoon in July and we're on our way to Canada for a week vacation. I'm in the back, playing a game called "Revenge of the Sith" on my Nintendo DS.

My adoptive mom, in the passenger seat, has dozed off hard while my adoptive dad studies the GPS as if it were one of the Dead Sea scrolls.

The same tire, directly under me had, thanks to a nail we picked up somewhere, gone flat a week ago. My dad, always financially thrifty, had it "plugged."

"That'll hold her for another 30K," he'd announced confidently.

Whether it was the distance, the heat if the road surface, or the weight of the load is up for debate. What's certain, though, is that the tire shot out that plug like a kid spitting out a stale piece of bubble gum. It was "pow," then thump-thump-thump, then my mom sitting straight up and, not totally awake, asking, "Is that my one o'clock?!"

"Call Auto-Insure," my dad tells her, as he maneuvers to the shoulder and gets out of the car. The trunk opens and I hear, "Leah! Give me a hand with some of this!"

My dad is unloading the packed trunk in order to make it easier for the guys from Auto-Insure once they get here. He hands me things and tells me to stack them in the knee-high grass: a pair of suitcases, a cooler, an inflatable mattress, bedding, a "Tent-In-A-Tube," a battery-powered lantern, beach chairs and an umbrella, and enough food to hold us should Canada mysteriously run out.

"Bingo!" my dad says as he discovers the buried jack and the "donut" tire.

Around us, the sky is growing black with clouds and traffic shoots by as if we're parked on the Watkins Glen Speedway.

My mother opens the car door and announces that Auto-Insure claims they can't locate us on any map. "They say it'll be easier and faster if we just change it ourselves," she says.

My dad is sixty and nowhere near peak shape. More than a few times I've seen him drop something on the kitchen floor — a fork or a corkscrew — slide it over with his foot, and use the edge of one of the counters for support. Today, though, luck seems to be with him. Before he can even get the jack out of the car, before he's even able to loosen the nuts that hold the wheel on, a pickup truck pulls off a short distance up from us. Emergency flashers go on, and a man about fifteen or twenty years younger than my dad gets out and trots back toward us. He's wearing jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt that says: SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY DRINKING TEAM.

"You folks okay?" he asks.

"Blew a tire," my father, King Obvious, tells him.

"Give you a hand?"

My father smiles. "Got it covered," he says.

The guy's eyes shoot over at me. "She adopted?" he asks.

My mom, cautious about where this could go, comes back and puts an arm around me. "From China," she says.

"Got one myself," the guy says, as if he's talking about a Rottweiler. And then to me, "How old are you, hon?"

"Twenty," I tell him.

"She's thirteen," my dad says, stepping in. "She thinks she's twenty."

The two men laugh and shake hands. "My name's Ron," the guy says.

"Andrew," my dad tells him. "Andy."

Ron takes over. In short time he's got the car up on the jack and the useless tire off. Over the roar of the traffic he tells us that his daughter is seven and, as is expected of us, great at math. "You know her Chinese name?" he asks my mom as he indicates me.

She tells him what I was called at the orphanage. "It means 'Winter River,'" she says.

"Mine's Lan Fen Fang," Ron says. "Fragrant Orchid."

All this time my father stands slightly away, seemingly helpless, somewhat embarrassed.

After Ron finishes, after the jack is put away and the trunk reloaded, my father steps forward, his hand in his pocket. "Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" he asks Ron as he takes out his money clip.

Take his money, I think to myself. Just do not refer to him as "Pop" or "Old Timer."

"Not in this life," Ron says as he smiles and musses my hair.

Back in the car my dad says, "That's it for me. Let's find a motel. We'll start from scratch tomorrow."

And I, reseated again behind them, think to myself how strange this all is. How bizarre if would be if things were reversed. If I was the adult, broken down with my child on some Chinese highway. Another motorist would stop, look at my young son, smile and ask, "Is he adopted?"

"Yes," I'd say. "His American name is Andrew. It means 'mighty one.'"

 

Tai Dong Huai was born in Taizhou, China. "Flat" is from her collection in progress, I Come From Where I've Never Been. Other selections have appeared, or are scheduled, in Smokelong Quarterly, elimae, Word Riot, Hobart, Thieves Jargon, Underground Voices, Wigleaf, The Rose & Thorn, and other terrific places.