Strange Stars New and Old

"Hey, look! The big dipper." Ron's said quietly from the back seat, his round face all but pressed up against the tinted glass. In the last week of this bizarre journey, the other dads had learned to sort of tune Ron out. And even in the sleepy quiet that had taken over the van, where his words had been the only purposeful noise anyone had made in hours, only Jodie really let them skip across the surface of his mind. He was focused on driving down this rocky path, and it took nearly a quarter of a mile until the meaning sunk in.