I can count on one hand the times my dad tried to teach me how to drive. When he finally decided, I was fifteen. We left on a Sunday afternoon in his 1999 Ford Escort, its gray paint slightly faded by the sun, and explored the area near the Villa Lugano racetrack. I drove with my hands tense on the wheel, trying to remember every instruction my dad had given me. He sat in the passenger seat, his body slightly hunched, his large, rough hands resting on his knees. His voice occasionally interrupted the silence to give me directions, which made me feel calmer and more at ease, surrounded by the faint smell of dampness and diesel inside the car.
When we got home, we were excited. My dad was even looking forward to our next lesson.
That time, we took a different route and headed toward Ezeiza through the tall trees in the forest. And there it was, my worst enemy: the speed bump. It wasn’t like the others I’ve encountered, smooth and rounded. It was one of those poorly made, patched-up ones.
Every time I tried to cross it, the engine would cough and die, the car would roll backward, and I had to start over. Each attempt grew more frustrating, and I couldn’t help thinking that the bump was my mountain, and I was Sisyphus; my dad’s car, the boulder.
My dad, sitting next to me, took deep breaths between each attempt. I noticed his jaw tightening as he rubbed the back of his neck. But he didn’t say anything, and he didn’t give up.
“One more time?” he said, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Slowly… That’s it. Try it again.”
By the fourth, fifth, sixth time I failed to get over that bump, he wasn’t hiding it so well anymore. He rubbed his forehead, looked down, and stayed silent for a moment. Then he looked at me, his lips pursed, and quietly said:
“One more, okay?”
And I didn’t make it that time either.
He said nothing. He simply sighed, and what he said next marked the end of the lesson. We switched seats and drove home in silence, but the radio was on, playing a CD mix of the Rolling Stones, U2, and Alice in Chains. We didn’t realize then that it would be the last time.
My dad died when I was twenty. I had just started college, barely beginning to find my way in the world. And even though I wasn’t a little girl anymore, I needed him more than ever—more than just to learn how to drive. He’d been my rock for so long, and suddenly, he was gone.
A long time later, I’m back behind the wheel. I’m about to go over a speed bump, like the one in Ezeiza, but this time, sitting next to me is the driving school instructor: a man in his fifties with an easy smile, watchful eyes, and a wrinkled notebook resting on his lap.
“Ease off the clutch… There you go,” he says, his voice trying to sound firm, though it doesn’t sound like my dad’s.
“One more,” I think to myself, as an echo I’ve kept inside, and I drive over the bump like it never was there to begin with.