The garage door was open. That’s the first thing I noticed, standing in my kitchen with coffee growing cold in my hands. Dennis never left it open.
In forty-three years of marriage, never once. But Dennis had been gone for eight months. I set my mug down and walked outside.
The spring air was warm, the kind of morning Dennis would have been out there already, polishing the chrome on his car. I stepped into the garage. The familiar oil stain on the concrete floor was there, a dark shadow where his car had sat for twenty years.
But the space was empty. Just empty. My chest tightened.
I could still see him here, his tools hanging on the pegboard, each outlined in black marker. The garage still smelled of him—motor oil, old leather, and the orange hand soap he used. A black BMW pulled into the driveway.
My son, Brian. He got out, shoulders hunched, refusing to meet my eyes. His wife, Vanessa, emerged from the passenger side, perfect as always in her designer sunglasses and clothes that cost more than my monthly groceries.
“Mom,” Brian began, stopping at the edge of the driveway. “Where’s the car, Brian?”
His jaw tightened. “That’s what I need to talk to you about… I sold it.”
The words didn’t make sense.
“You what?”
“I sold it yesterday,” he mumbled, looking at the ground. “I needed the money. Vanessa’s been planning this Paris trip for her business.
I couldn’t let her down.”
That car was your father’s life’s work. Twenty years of weekends, of grease-stained hands and quiet satisfaction. “It was just sitting there, Mom,” he said, his voice defensive.
“Dad’s gone. You don’t even drive it. I got a good price for it, too.
Fifteen thousand dollars.”
Fifteen thousand dollars for a car he’d promised would stay in the family forever. Vanessa glided to his side, placing a proprietary hand on his arm. Her nails were perfect and red.
“Carol, we’re not discussing this. It’s done. We leave for Paris tomorrow.”
“This is between me and my son.”
“I’m his wife,” she said, her voice smooth as silk.
“What’s between you and him involves me. Brian is trying to build a life. Surely you can understand that.” She smiled, a cold, polished thing.
“We’ll send you photos from Paris. You’d love it there.”
They left. I stood alone in the empty garage, the silence a physical weight.
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