A Pamphlet for This

2019 Nelson Algren Award Finalist

As soon as she parks us next to the curb outside my grandfather’s house, XiuLi bolts from the car like it’s filled with bees. She’s sick of me because I’ve spent the past three hours looking over her shoulder every time she changed lanes to pass and eyeing the speedometer to make sure it never crested 80.

“Dad, this car’s an electric hybrid with adaptive cruise control and lane drift alerts,” she had insisted upon merging onto I-94 near the Milwaukee airport. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to crash these things?”

“It’s not you I worry about,” I had told her, gesturing to the other cars around us. “It’s them.” But that’s a lie. I worry about XiuLi every single day.

Read the full story at The Chicago Tribune.