Daniel said goodbye and hung up. He did not sleep particularly well. Not for any dramatic reason. Just the slight electrical hum of an uncertain thing approaching the way the body registers change before the mind fully processes it. Soccer was at nine.
Lucas's team, the North Side Rockets, a name chosen by committee of 10-year-olds and deeply committed to played against a team from the Southside who were better organized and slightly less enthusiastic. The game ended 2 to1. Rockets losing, which Lucas handled with the particular form of dignity, only available to children who have been raised to believe that effort matters more than outcome and who still find that genuinely difficult to believe when they lose. In the car afterward, Lucas pressed his face against the window. We should have gone more aggressive in the second half.
You were reading the playright, Daniel said. You saw the gap on the left side three times, but I didn't go. Why didn't you go? Lucas thought about it for a long moment. I kept thinking about what would happen if I went and it didn't work.
Daniel drove for a block. What would happen? I don't know. Nothing. I guess I'd just be wrong.
Would that be the end of the world? Lucas looked at him. No. So, what's the cost of going? Another pause.
Nothing. Lucas said quietly. If I go and it doesn't work, it doesn't work. If I don't go, it definitely doesn't work. There you go.
You're doing the dad thing where you turn everything into a lesson. Is it working? Lucas thought about it. Maybe, he said with the tone of someone who will absolutely apply this information and will never fully admit it. They got donuts.
Lucas got a maple bar and a chocolate old-fashioned and ate both in the car without apology. Daniel got a plain glazed and coffee and thought about how in 20 years he was going to remember this as one of the good Saturday mornings and he tried to actually be in it rather than just noting it for future memory. They got home at 11:05. Daniel changed out of the soccer game clothes and went out to the garage to open it up and start on the Bronco. Lucas followed still in his cleats, immediately finding his spot on the overturned milk crate near the workbench.
The garage was two-car, or had been. One bay held the Bronco, the other held Daniel's tools and the workbench and the ancient coffee maker. A space heater in the corner kept it from being cold. The garage door was opened to the late October morning, and the light came in gray and clean. At 11:28, a car pulled up at the curb.
Not the Mercedes that had presumably been repaired and returned to her. This was a dark gray Volvo SUV current-year, conservative. The kind of car driven by a person who has more than enough money to be ostentatious and has chosen not to be. She parked it correctly, nose-in, the way someone who learned to park on actual streets parks, not valet style. She got out in jeans, actual jeans, dark wash fitted, and a camel colored wool coat and boots that were practical without being cheap.
No blazer, no executive polish, hair down. She stood at the edge of the driveway for a moment, taking in the garage with an expression he couldn't fully read from the distance. He came out of the garage bay to meet her. You found it, he said. GPS helped.
She looked at the garage at the open bay at the Bronco with its hood up at Lucas on the milk crate who had turned to look at her with the frank unfiltered assessment of a 10-year-old. This is it. This is it. She looked at Lucas. Lucas looked at her.
You're tall, Lucas said. Lucas, Daniel said. That's an observation, not an insult. It's fine, Victoria said. And something in her face loosened.
I am tall. It comes in handy sometimes. Like what? Reaching things on high shelves without asking for help. Lucas considered this as if it were a serious point.
That's actually useful, he admitted. Lucas, this is Victoria. Victoria, this is Lucas. Are you the woman from work? Lucas asked.
Daniel made a small decision not to look at her. Probably, she said. Dad said a woman from work was coming. He didn't say why. I wanted to see the garage, she said.
I heard it was worth seeing. Lucas looked at the garage, then back at her with the expression of someone who finds this motivation reasonable but slightly puzzling. "It's a good garage," he said, as if offering fair warning before she made up her own mind. "I can see that," she said. Daniel handed her a cup of coffee from the workbench maker without asking.
She took it with both hands, the same way she'd taken the hoodie in the car without looking at him, but immediately. He noticed that. He noticed the way certain things didn't require her to think. She stood near the opening of the bay and looked at the Bronco. "Eighty-seven," she said.
He looked at her. "The body style," she said. "The round headlights changed to square in 87 and the trim on the wheel wells is different." She paused. "My father had a subscription to Classic Truck magazine from 1983 to 1998."
He looked at her for a moment longer. 87. He confirmed. Transmission rebuild. The original C6 is done.
I'm putting in a rebuilt 4R70W. It's not period correct, but the owner just wants it to run. She looked at the open hood. What's the big obstacle? Crossmember clearance. The new trans sits slightly lower.
I'm fabricating a bracket. Fabricating meaning you're making it yourself. I don't have the budget to order a custom kit and the owner doesn't either. So, yes. She walked over and looked into the engine bay.
Not performatively, actually looked, leaning in slightly, reading what she was looking at. Lucas watched this from the milk crate with renewed interest. Do you know about cars? He asked her. Less than I pretend to, she said.
But I grew up around them. She straightened. My father used to say that a man who could fix his own car would never be truly stuck. Not because of the car, because of the thinking. My dad says something like that.
Lucas said he says knowing how to fix things means you understand how things work. And if you understand how things work, you can figure out almost anything. She looked at Daniel. He looked at the Bronco. Smart kid, she said.
He has his moments. Daniel said. Lucas, who had heard this approximately 400 times in his life, accepted it as the high compliment it was, and returned to his book. She stayed for 2 and 1/2 hours. That was the part Daniel hadn't planned for.