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Show the stories from thin air, conjuring the plot line moment by moment. His voice was low and even. Often I was asleep by the end of the tale. Once upon a time, he began. There were three little kids. A girl and her two brothers. They didn 't have any parents. They lived on a houseboat. They were three kids lost. Always lost, always orphaned, always three, they would meet adventure after adventure, using their wits to escape dragons and monsters and bears who lived in caves. We reinvented his stories in our play, bringing the tales into the light of day. Scott and I rearranged the pillows on the couch to create the cabins for our houseboat or stacked cardboard blocks to make the walls for the house in the woods where the three kids lived. The winds came, waves rolled over the cushions, dragons breathed fire from the sky, but we survived. I suppose my father's stories taught us independence and creativity, but most of all, I think, they taught us to rely on each other. Friends never joined us on the adventure, or adults. We handled whatever came our way, isolated on our houseboat in the middle of a vast ocean. And we always survived. The heroes lived, the bad guys didn't, and when my father turned out the light the world made sense. Of the nights at home that year, I remember one in particular. We were playing "Kick the Can" in the basement, all of us wearing shoes to protect against the embedded straight pins. The Coke can rested in front of the fireplace, my mother guarding it, as my brothers and father and I tried to get past her. Rain splattered the windows in the dark, winter evening, but it was warm, if not bright, in the basement. We had eaten an early dinner, hamburger casserole with green 106 |