I loved driving around with Aaron. Our rides never lasted long enough. But as my father and I set out on our Great Disappointment road trip, every mile took forever. The houses were shabby, the barns half collapsed, the countryside depressed me. Dad said, “Did I ever tell you that Miller got most of his information from the book of Daniel? It’s an eschatologist’s gold mine. A grab bag of prophetic dreams and exploding galaxies, tornadoes, hungry monsters rising out of a sea—” “You told me,” I said. Every time he said “Miller,” I thought, Miller’s Point. I felt guilty for not mentioning it in case, with all his poking around in the library, he’d missed some crucial connection between Aaron’s panorama spot and his doomsday landing strip. But if I told him, I might have to explain how I knew. I couldn’t believe that I, a scientifically minded person, was accompanying my father on a mission to channel the ghosts of dead fanatics. Margaret and I had made fun of Dad, but the truth was, we’d both liked the part of him that would drive to the middle of nowhere on the chance of finding some leftover ectoplasm.
