Not one of them wanted to go to Abilene. They all went.
It is a July afternoon in Coleman, Texas, 104 on the drugstore thermometer, and the dominoes are clicking and the lemonade is sweating rings into the wood. The fan stirs the air like a rumor of relief. West Texas topsoil is blowing through the house. Nothing is wrong, exactly. Nobody needs to be anywhere. Then the father-in-law says it. Let’s drive to Abilene. Have dinner at the cafeteria.
Abilene is fifty-three miles away. The car is a 1958 Buick with no air conditioning, which is to say a kiln with seats.
Before anyone answers, there is a pause. Two seconds, maybe three. You could almost hear it, four people doing the same arithmetic, each alone, and arriving at the same answer. This is a terrible idea. Then they do the second piece of arithmetic, the one that ruins the afternoon: but he suggested it, and she probably wants to, and I would hate to be the one.