Around mid-morning, my legs start to feel crampy and, seeing a gas bar coming up in the distance, I begin to decelerate.

"Are we stopping, Daddy?" asks Anne, looking up from her colouring book. Anne is my six-year old daughter.

"Yeah, in just a minute or two, baby," I answer, glancing over at her, "Daddy needs to stretch his legs. We’ll get some gas and water and maybe some snacks for the road, OK?"

She nods, satisfied by my explanation, and begins to put her crayons away in their box. She closes her book and then carefully stows everything in the pouch on the inside of the car door.

Anne and I are on a road-trip; one that we have both been looking forward to for ages. When I first proposed the idea to my ex-wife, Sylvia, she wasn’t very impressed. I explained that it was the only period when I could get some time off, and that it would be good for Anne to visit my parents in New Mexico. Eventually, she acquiesced on the condition that we kept in constant contact with her by phone so that she would know everything was all right. I happily agreed, knowing that it would mean that I could have Anne with me for almost three whole weeks.

The plan was to head directly west across the desert on Highway 74 to Mercy Falls which sits in the foothills of the mountains. There we would rest and then pick up the 91 going almost all the way south to Redemption, New Mexico, where my folks run an old horse ranch. I was especially looking forward to the trip south because we would have a constant view of the mountains and I hoped that Anne, even though still small, would remember it. But before that, we still had to cross the desert.

Moments later, as the pump bell rings, we stop in front of a dusty, southern-style gas station with cracked adobe everywhere you look. The place looks deserted as I gratefully step down from the car and glance around. Turning toward the front of the place, my eye catches movement, and an old man inside waves, indicating that I can pump my own.

"Stay in the car a sec’ ‘till I finish getting gas," I say to Anne and she smiles back at me. I lean against the fender of the car as the old pump buzzes and clicks and wheezes and eventually a little sputter of gas falls on the sandy ground and the pump shuts off. I put the nozzle back on the hook and screw the gas cap tightly in place. Then I open the passenger door and unclip the seat-belt, freeing Anne, who scampers out happily. She goes ‘round and, gently pushes the car door closed and then, dutifully, takes my hand as we walk across the sun-soaked yard, up three crumbling stone steps and into the dimness of the station.

The man behind the counter is aged somewhere between very old and ancient and I can’t help smiling. He is bald except for some long stray wisps of white hair that stick out like a few sickly weeds in a badly tended garden. His face is cluttered with creases from long exposure to the desert sun and his mouth is clearly toothless. His eyes are large, clear and watery and I find myself doubting that he can actually see with those strangely bright orbs. He is wearing a clean but faded blue coverall with a patch on the front that says ‘Injun Dan’s Gas Bar’.

"Good morning", I say stepping up with Anne hovering timidly behind my leg. "How much for the gas?"

He turns to an equally ancient device on the counter and then answers in a sandy-dry voice which is perfect for the place; "25’ll do it". I fish in my pocket for the requested sum and place it on the counter in front of him. He takes the bills, straightens them carefully, and places them in a drawer under the counter.

"Hey," I say, "we need a few things, do you mind…?"

"You g’head and help yerself, young feller," he answers and with much swaying and creaking, deposits himself on a stool against the wall.

I walk around the little shop with Anne and we collect some bottles of water, a bag of chips, some oranges and other things. With my hands full, Anne switches to holding onto the leg of my jeans. As we return toward the counter, something catches Anne’s eye. She releases her tight grasp on my jeans and darts toward a rack with various little packages hanging on it. She reaches for one, lifts it gently off the hook, and turns back toward me.

"Can we get this, Daddy?" and she pushes it toward me like an offering.

I deposit the supplies on the counter and take the package from her hand to study it. It is a cellophane bag with a cardboard label bent over the top and stapled to close it. The side of the label I first see says: ‘Heng Tan China Importers Inc., Hong Kong’. The other side, to my great amusement, says: ‘Holy Helping Jesus’ in its strange, orientalised English. In fact, inside the package is a 4 inch high plastic statue of Jesus with his hands turned outwards in blessing. The majority of it is painted gold, but I can see that the unpainted, pale-greenish face, hands and feet glow in the dark.

"Do you know what this is, sweetie?", I ask, peering down at my daughter’s expectant face.

"Sure I do", she answers, sounding slightly offended, "It’s a little Jesus-guy."

I have never attended church and Sylvia is a lapsed Catholic. Anne has never been to church either as far as I know. Her only exposure to religion in any form is on TV or at school, I guess. Still, if she’s developing some form of curiosity about Jesus or God, I need to respect that and if that means taking her to church to satisfy her curiosity then so-be-it. I’ll need to remember to ask Sylvia if she’s noticed anything like this next time I call.

"Yeah, we can get the little Jesus-guy, sweetie. Is there anything else you need?" Anne beams her pleasure at me.

"Can we get a postcard to send Mummy?"

"Good idea! There’s a rack right there. Go pick one out."

I nod to the living fossil on the stool who somehow manages to regain his feet and teeters toward the counter.

"Just this, I guess, and the postcard that my girl is picking", I say to him. Soon Anne returns and hands a postcard to me.

"Look Daddy! That car looks just like yours!

The car in the picture is, indeed, the same make as my own. It sits on a highway with a spectacular desert scene in the background. I pay for the supplies, the postcard and the little plastic Jesus and thank the old man. As we are readying to leave, I bend over and quietly ask Anne if she has to pee. She looks doubtful and then says that she should go. I ask the old man if there’s a washroom and he nods with his chin to a door in the back saying, ‘It’s open’.

After glancing down to ensure that Anne’s laces are tied, we enter the tiny washroom and I am surprised to find that it is quite clean. I carefully study the air vent in the ceiling and the small, screened window high in the wall looking for hidden cameras. I notice that the mirror above the sink is plastered to the wall and don’t trust it. I help Anne and lift her onto the seat so that she doesn’t touch anything. Then I turn my back and place myself between the toilet and the mirror, waiting until she finishes. When she calls me, I help her down and get her clothing adjusted. I turn on the faucets and lift my little girl up so that she can wash her hands.

"Look Daddy!" she says suddenly, looking into our reflection in the mirror. "We look like a picture of a daddy and his little girl!"

I look up and I see that it is true. In the cracked pink plastic frame of the mirror, I see two smiling faces looking back. My own is lightly tanned and fair with high cheek-bones, narrow blue eyes and an unruly shock of dirty blonde hair. My daughter is completely different. She has a darker complexion, an oval face, big brown-cow eyes and long straight brown hair. She is much more like her mother and I wonder why I recognise so little of myself in that face. She is smiling broadly at me with the bridge of her nose wrinkling slightly. I kiss the top of her head. As always, my heart begins to burst with love for her. She begins to squirm and I put her down.

I used to joke to my wife that, maybe at Christmas, the postman, a swarthy Greek, had left more than a handful of greeting cards. She didn’t get the joke and left me. Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Sometimes people do just ‘grow apart’. We had been married for almost 2 years when Anne came along and, at the time, I thought that I could never have been happier. Until our baby was 4 years old, we continued to pretend that we still loved one another. Then one evening, while Sylvia’s mother was watching Anne, we went out for dinner and caused a scene. Over the course of dinner we began to reminisce about all kinds of things that we had done and hoped for. We drank a rich, full-bodied Italian red wine and began to realise that our relationship was all in the past-tense. At a certain point we clasped hands; her nails dug terribly into the flesh of my palms and my grip was so tight that I’m sure I must have hurt her. We both started to tear-up and the rest of the evening was more emotional than that. Six months later we separated amicably. We continued to support each other and, realising that what had happened was truly nobody’s fault, we concluded the divorce. Anne remained happily coddled between us as we went about separate lives.