My brother put his arm around my shoulder, smiled at a crowd of his friends, and announced that my grief was making me confused.
He was talking about a car. My late husband’s car.
The one I lent him for a month when his truck broke down.
The one he kept for a year, put fuzzy dice in, and let his teenage son thrash. The one he painted a tacky electric blue and entered in a car show under his own name.
He told everyone I was crazy for wanting it back.
He said he was the one taking care of it. That I was being selfish.
He thought he controlled the story by painting me as the crazy one, but he never imagined I’d give him the perfect photograph to prove it, and that it would be the price he paid for everything.
The Keys in Hand: A Cold Garage, A Warm Memory
The garage smelled like David. Not the sour, sickroom smell from the end, but the real David. A mix of gasoline, leather polish, and the faint, clean scent of Windex. Six months. It felt like six years and six minutes all at once. My hand hovered over the gray canvas sheet covering the lump in the center of the space.
My daughter, Chloe, appeared at the door connecting to the house, her silhouette framed by the warm kitchen light. At sixteen, she had his eyes, a fact that was both a comfort and a tiny, daily stab wound.
“Mom? You okay?”
I pulled my hand back. “Yeah, honey. Just thinking.”
I could feel the shape of it under the sheet. The elegant curve of the fender, the slope of the windshield. A 1967 Mustang fastback, cherry-red, the color of a perfect lollipop. David had spent a decade restoring it, piece by painstaking piece. It was his cathedral.
“Are you thinking about Dad?” she asked, her voice soft.
Before I could answer, my phone buzzed in my pocket. The screen lit up with a picture of my brother, Mark, grinning on a fishing boat. I almost ignored it.
“You should get that,” Chloe said. “It might be important.”
I sighed and answered, pressing the cold glass to my ear. “Hey, Mark.”
The Favor
“Diane! How you holding up?” His voice was a boom, full of the forced cheer people use when they don’t know what else to say.
“I’m fine, Mark. What’s up?” I kept my own voice level. Small talk felt like chewing on sand.
“Listen, I’m in a real bind,” he started, and I could already feel the familiar pull of familial obligation. “The transmission on the F-150 just went. Kaput. The mechanic’s talking three grand and says he won’t even be able to look at it for a couple of weeks.”
I made a noncommittal noise. I was an elementary school art teacher. I spent my days with glitter and tempera paint; a blown transmission was outside my realm of expertise.
“The thing is, Karen needs her car for work, and Leo has practice every day. I’m totally stuck. I was thinking… and I know this is a big ask…”
I knew what was coming. I squeezed my eyes shut, the image of the red Mustang flaring behind my lids.
“What about David’s car?” he asked. “It’s just sitting there, right? I would be so careful with it. Just for a month, maybe two, until I get the truck sorted. It would be a lifesaver, Di. A total lifesaver.”
The silence stretched. Chloe was watching me, her expression unreadable. I looked at the covered car. It was just an object, wasn’t it? An engine and four wheels. My brother was in trouble. David would have wanted me to help family. Wouldn’t he?
“Okay,” I heard myself say. The word felt foreign, like it belonged to someone else. “Okay, Mark. For a month or two.”
The Handover
Mark came over the next afternoon, smelling of cheap cologne and gratitude. He wrapped me in a hug that felt more constricting than comforting.
“You’re the best, Di. Seriously. David would be so proud of you, looking out for your big brother.” He winked.
I didn’t say anything. I just led him into the garage and pulled the sheet off the car. It gleamed under the fluorescent lights, the red paint so deep you could fall into it. The chrome bumper was a perfect, flawless mirror. Mark let out a low whistle.
“Man. She’s a beauty. David did an amazing job.”
He ran his hand along the hood, a gesture of ownership that made my stomach clench. I went to the workbench where David had kept the keys on a magnetic hook. They were cold in my palm. One for the ignition, one for the trunk. Attached to a simple leather fob David had made himself.
“He said this was his therapy,” I said quietly. “Sanding, painting, tuning the engine. It’s where he went to be quiet.”
“Well, now it’s my therapy,” Mark joked, taking the keys from my hand. His fingers brushed mine, and I had to fight the urge to snatch them back. “My get-to-work-on-time therapy.”
He slid into the driver’s seat. The vinyl creaked under his weight. He started the engine, and the garage filled with a low, rumbling growl that vibrated through the concrete floor. It was the sound of Sunday afternoons, of David’s greasy hands and satisfied smile.
I stood in the driveway with Chloe and watched him pull away. The Mustang looked wrong on the street, out of place, like seeing a wild animal in a cage. As it turned the corner, its red flank disappeared from view.
“You did a good thing, Mom,” Chloe said, slipping her hand into mine.
I hoped she was right.
First Crack in the Pavement
A month came and went. Then two. My gentle texts—”Hey, just checking in on the car!”—were met with breezy replies about how great it was driving, how many compliments he was getting. The truck, apparently, needed a part from a faraway land that was perpetually on backorder.
At three months, I called. He promised he’d get his truck from the shop “next week for sure.” He didn’t.
It was a Tuesday night, four months after the handover. I was scrolling through my phone, a mindless ritual to numb the evening quiet. I saw that my nephew, Leo, had posted a new photo to his Instagram. I clicked on it.
My breath caught in my throat. It was the Mustang. It was parked in what looked like a high school parking lot, but it wasn’t just parked. A huge cloud of white smoke billowed from the rear tires, obscuring the license plate. The car was angled, caught in the middle of a burnout, a show of loud, obnoxious power.
The caption read: “Tearing it up. #mustang #classiccar #burnout”
My hands were shaking. David had babied those tires. He’d measured the tread with a special gauge. Leo, my seventeen-year-old nephew, was shredding them for social media likes.
I screenshotted the image and sent it to Mark. My own text was simple, devoid of the anger churning in my gut.
I saw Leo’s post. Please tell me he’s not doing this to the car.
I watched the three little dots appear and disappear for a full five minutes. I felt sick. Finally, his reply came through.
Boys will be boys! He loves driving his uncle’s cool car. You should be happy it’s getting some use.
His uncle’s cool car. Not David’s. Not mine. His. The word hung there on the screen, a small, black tombstone marking the death of my trust.
A Reasonable Request: The One-Year Anniversary
The one-year anniversary of the loan passed in a blur of ignored phone calls and deflections. It was also, cruelly, the eighteen-month anniversary of David’s death. The two events had become horribly intertwined in my mind. My grief for my husband was now snarled up with a cold, hard anger at my brother.
The Mustang wasn’t just a car anymore. It was a promise Mark had broken, a piece of my husband he had stolen and was slowly defiling, one joyride at a time. The fuzzy dice I’d glimpsed in another one of Leo’s photos were a personal insult.
I was sitting at the kitchen table, staring at a picture of David and me from a vacation we took to the coast. He was leaning against the Mustang’s hood, grinning, the sunset glinting off the chrome.
That was it. The time for being the understanding, grieving sister was over. I had asked nicely. I had been patient. Now, I was going to get David’s car back.
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