Vogue | The Drives That Brought Me Closer to My Dad

When I was 10 years old, my Aunt Janny told me a secret: “I asked your dad which of you he’d choose to be stuck with in a car for 24 hours,” she whispered conspiratorially. By “you,” she had meant me and my four other siblings. “And La,” she said, smacking my arm, “ It’s you! He didn’t even have to think about it, he just said, ‘Laura. No question.’” At the time, none of this made much sense to me. Why would she ask my father that? When would he and I ever be in a car for 24 hours? Where would we even be going without the rest of our family? The thought that maybe this was Janny’s way of telling me I was my father’s favorite did surface, but it just as immediately vanished. The whole thing seemed fishy to me, which is probably why I remember it so clearly.

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