One of my shoes nudges a book on the car floor, my eyes focus forward, and my heart bruises my ribs. I sit on the passenger side, clasped-handed. My son steers and asks, "How do you know when it's too late to stop on yellow?"

"I can't tell you," I answer, attempting not to yelp as vehicles swerve around us. "I drive so automatic."

Lately I live on the cusp of release. I've been reading more, as I used to long ago before the final school bell each year. My youngest, my son, takes driver's ed at the community college. While his class is in session I wait in the car, window down, reading to calm myself.

Though a habitual sampler of the classics, recently I'm into books from childhood. Old Yeller, White Fang. I'm fascinated, reliving their stories, tasting with adult understanding their varied textures.

As a kid on all fours in the high-ceilinged front room I acted out their adventures. My moves became canine — a gliding trot that ate up miles along forest paths, the thrice turning around before curling tail to nose beneath the snow.

Wisely Mom never said "Stop being silly," or "Act more ladylike." She must have known those tales copied from books were less about animals than people.

After six weeks, driver's ed classes end. A week later my son takes his test. I wait on a plastic seat inside the DMV, attempting to focus on an early page in East of Eden. The relationships in the story signal conflict ahead.

When I tested, more than 30 years ago, Mom may have browsed a magazine. "We'll celebrate this evening," she told me beforehand. Then I failed; the first time I'd failed anything. Traumatized, I holed up in my room with a book as long as possible.

Now every nerve threatens to burst before my son returns. Rather than choosing Steinbeck, I should have heeded Call of the Wild's noble insistence and plucked it from the shelf. Adventures in that book brought forth primordial beasts who always won to mastership.

I drop pretense of reading when our car nudges back into a DMV slot. This is almost over, I think. But it's not.

My son waves me to the driver's seat and gets in. He stares out the passenger window. His chin trembles.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I say, starting the car.

He shrugs. "I never thought I was supposed to drive, anyway."

My son is a different sort than I. He doesn't read for pleasure, only to absorb what he needs. His bookshelves hold hiking guides and maps.

"I didn't want a license," he says. His jaw is set.

"You just take the test again in a week," I say.

"No. I'll ride my bike everywhere. Gas is expensive. And it pollutes."

"Of course. You need a license, though. How will you take out a girlfriend, get a job, transport your family someday?"

He rolls his eyes. We're home.

My son unearths a wrench and adjusts the headlight on his handlebars.

He leaves for a friend's. I catch a glimpse as he glides swiftly, silently down the street.

Before landing on the sofa, I stop at the bookshelf and trade Steinbeck for Jack London. My favorite literary dog, Buck, strains forward at the head of his sled team.

Hoping my son will be gone a while, I sink to my knees on the carpet. Softly, I woof. Licking my lips, I sniff the air. Then I trot off across the freshest of snows.

Deanna Hershiser lives in Eugene, Oregon with her husband, a large cat, and a small dog. Her essays and fiction have appeared in Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression and Camroc Press Review.