Home to Harmony (10 page)

It had been so scary on the winding roads that David’s heart had been in his throat the whole time. When he’d parked, he’d been so sweaty he slipped right off the seat.

Now all he had to do was practice. As soon as he could make it all the way to New Mirage without passing out from hyperventilating, he’d be ready to head for Phoenix.

Heart pounding, he climbed into the cab of the truck. “Come on, girl,” he whispered, patting the passenger seat for Lady to jump up. She walked backward, as if she didn’t feel safe. He hoped she was wrong.

The engine would be noisy starting up, so he decided to push the pickup to the gate before turning the key. He used his flashlight to read the gear panel, set the truck in Neutral and, with the door open, put his weight into getting the heavy Ford rolling forward. He would make a slow curve away from the mesquite trees, then have a straight shot to the gate.

Lady whined at him and paced, clearly wondering what he was doing. He’d only gone ten feet or so when he hit a gravel hump and had to rock back and forth to get enough momentum to bounce over it. He was breathing hard and his arm muscles throbbed when the truck finally made it. Whew.

Except the truck picked up speed and he realized they were on a slope. David’s heart lurched. He leaned back, holding the door, dragging his heels to slow the truck, but it was too heavy and going too fast, headed straight for some trees.

Lady gave a sharp bark.

Running to keep up, David lost his footing, stumbled and dropped to the ground, scraping his knees, forearms and palms in the gravel. Lady hovered over him, whining. He watched as, with a sickening thud, the truck slammed into a mesquite tree.

Oh, no. He’d crashed the truck. Ignoring the sting and burn of his road rash, he ran to see how much damage he’d done, Lady at his heels. Leaning over the seat to get the flashlight, he bumped the horn, which gave a loud blast into the quiet night.

His heart in his throat, he ran the flashlight over the front of the truck to check the damage. It looked bad. Very bad.

“What the hell are you up to, David?”

He jumped at the sound of his grandmother’s voice. Lady barked in surprise, too. He whipped around.

“Ouch.” She blocked the flashlight beam with a hand. “Put that down, for God’s sake.”

“Sorry,” he said, dropping it to his side. Lady nudged his thigh, as if to comfort him.

“You crashed the Ford?” His grandmother scratched her tangled hair. She wore a baggie t-shirt and sweatpants.

“I was trying not to wake anyone up.”

“By honking the horn and making the dog bark? Here. Give me that.” She yanked the flashlight from him and stomped to the other side of the tree to shine it on the front of the truck. “Well, the grille’s destroyed. The radiator…maybe.”

“Will it still drive?”

“Let’s find out.” She climbed into the driver’s seat. This time Lady leaped right up and over her to the passenger seat.

“Are you supposed to be doing this?” he asked. “With your heart surgery and all?”

“
Now
you’re worried? Like you didn’t about give me a heart attack wrecking my truck? I’m fine. You’re as bad as your mother and Bogie.” She seemed just the usual grouchy, at least. She left the door hanging open and turned the key. The engine started, then died. She tried again. It rattled, turned, but didn’t catch, dying again.

She shook her head. “I don’t know, David. Doesn’t sound too good. Let’s hope Carl can repair it. God knows if they even make parts for this old thing anymore.”

“I can help him fix it.”

“You’ve done a lot of engine work, have you?”

He hung his head, feeling like he might cry.

“Maybe you can bring him lemonade or wipe the sweat out of his eyes.” Her words sounded mean but he could tell she was trying to distract him from crying.

It didn’t work. Tears were running down his cheeks. He’d wrecked the truck and he was further from seeing Brigitte than ever. Plus, now that the shock was over, his arms, palms and legs burned like hell. He peeled back his sleeve to examine his injury.

“You get hurt?”

“Just scraped, I think,” he mumbled.

“You’re better off than the pickup. There’s peroxide in our medicine cabinet. Put some on when you get in. What were you doing driving? Your mother said no way.”

“Mitch showed me how and I was practicing.” His stomach felt like he was about to puke. “I’ll pay for the repair.” But it would have to be Christine’s cash. How would he get it?

“Just say a prayer to the god of auto parts.”

“Are you going to tell my mom?” She’d never let him out of her sight again. All his efforts to chill her out would be down the drain.

“Now how would that fix this?” Aurora shook her head and stared through the windshield at the mass of branches. “I guess I’ll have to say I did it.” She looked down at him. “I’ll keep this between us on one condition—you tell me what this dead-of-night learn-to-drive thing is all about.”

“You won’t tell Mom?”

“Tell me what you’re up to and we’ll see.”

He swallowed hard. “I was going to borrow the truck to get back to Phoenix.”

“For the girlfriend, right? Barbara?”

“Brigitte. I have to see her.” Lady whined, as if she felt the same urgency. “I really do.”

“So, let me see if I got this. You were stealing my truck without knowing how to drive, planning to take a twisting mountain road to the highway, then drive eighty miles an hour to Phoenix in the middle of the night. What do you think Highway Patrol does when they see a kid weaving around? They stop him. And when they find out you have no license? Let’s just say HP cops have no sense of humor. Trust me, I know.”

“I was only practicing, okay? I wasn’t leaving yet.” He hated how stupid she’d made him sound.

“And what about gas money? Got any?” He shrugged. “This thing leaks oil like crazy. It can barely make it to town, let alone three hundred miles.”

“I didn’t figure that out yet.”

She shook her head like he was a hopeless kid. “Okay, so you’re desperate to see this girl. She desperate to see you?”

“I think so…. Maybe. I’m not sure anymore.”

“She’s older, right? She have a license? Invite her here.”

“She doesn’t own a car. Public transportation is green.”

“She too green to
borrow
a car?”

“It doesn’t matter. Christine would never let her come.”

“Sometimes seeing a person in a different place changes how you feel about them. Maybe they’d get along better out here.”

“Not Christine. No way.”

“Give your mom more credit.”

He couldn’t believe she was saying that, since she picked on Christine every chance she got. Still, his mind was racing. What if Brigitte did drive here? She
was
interested in Harmony House. He could hide her in his room….

“You really love this girl?”

“Yeah.” It felt good to let it out, like a balloon about to burst getting suddenly released. “She’s, like, my life.”

“You’ll love a lot of people, David. Don’t hold on so tight to one. Attachment isn’t healthy. It breeds jealousy and possessiveness and a lot of poison you don’t want inside you.”

“Not with Brigitte.” Not if you were lucky enough to find the one person who understood you. “Being away from her mixes me up.”

“Then invite her to visit,” she said. “I’ll talk to your mother if you want me to.”

“It wouldn’t help. She doesn’t get it at all.” Bitterness welled up inside him and he blurted his secret wish. “I should be with my dad. She’s always telling me that I’m like him, so that’s where I should go.”

The words scared him a little. He felt uneasy about his dad. Why hadn’t he reached out to David in all these years?

“It would kill your mother if you left,” Aurora said.

“She should understand. She left, too, right?”

His grandmother only looked at him. “That’s a long story, David. It was a different time. And she was older than you.”

“Just two years.” He didn’t see the difference at all.

His grandmother sighed. “All I know is your mother will think I’ve lost my mind when I tell her I crashed into a tree.”

“I don’t get what she has against you.” She was always huffing and rolling her eyes and all the stories she’d told him about Aurora made his grandmother look bad. He’d loved it when she visited him when he was five, but his mom had bitched about all the fun stuff they’d done.

“Like I said, David. It’s a long story.”

“Anyway, I’m sorry I took the truck without permission.”

“What’s mine is everyone’s here, you know that.”

“Thanks, Grandma—uh, Aurora—for not telling her.”

She waved away his gratitude and started back to the house. Lady jumped from the truck and stood with him, watching her go. Despite how much his scrapes were burning and how ashamed he was about the wreck, David felt lighter inside. Excited. He had a plan. Invite Brigitte here. He couldn’t tell Christine, though, no matter what his grandmother said. If everything went well, no one would ever know.

“You
jumped
in the truck? First off, no driving for six weeks. I would have driven you to town, you know.”

“Hold on.” Aurora held up her hand. “So I had the car in Neutral, and it was rolling downhill, but it wouldn’t start right off and—bam—I hit the tree.” Her mother’s eyes flitted back and forth. There was more to the story than that.

“Carl, watch the bumper now,” Aurora said, moving closer. “David, get out of the man’s way.”

Christine had a terrible thought. “Did you black out?”

“Black out? Of course not. I was
going
for a beer. I hadn’t had any yet.”

“Not that kind of blackout. You might have had a stroke. Do you have any loss of feeling?” Her heart raced at the possibility. A stroke would be terrible. “Make a fist. Smile, too. I forget the tests to see if you’ve had one.”

“Cut it out. Honest to God, if you stab me with a pin to see if it hurts, I’ll knock you to the ground.”

“She’s fine, Mom,” David said. “Don’t worry.” Was he limping?

“What’s wrong with your leg?” she asked.

“I scraped it in the gravel. No big deal.”

“You know kids, clumsy as hell,” Aurora interjected. “And I did not have a stroke. I misjudged. A dumb mistake. Jesus.”

“We should have your doctor check you out. Aren’t you due for a checkup anyway?”

“Calm down,” Aurora said, her expression softening. She looked Christine straight in the eye for once. “I’m fine. I really am. Please stop worrying about me.” Her mother smiled.

What the hell? Her mother was being gentle and kind to her. This was new. Christine felt warm all over. “If you’re sure…”

“Can I get your tools?” David yelled to Carl, who was pounding open the bent hood. “Or do you want water? I could get lemonade.”

“I’m glad to see David being helpful,” Christine said.

“He damn well ought to be,” Aurora groused. “He doesn’t always use his head, does he? Jumps in without thinking?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“That could really get on your nerves.” Without looking at Christine, she added, “You weren’t like that. You always had good sense.”

“Why, thank you, Aurora,” she said, amazed at the compliment and the sympathy over David.

“But if you don’t let a kid make mistakes, he can’t learn from them now, can he?”

With that her mother walked off. A compliment with one hand, a smack with the other. But what stayed with Christine was the tenderness in her mother’s face, the kindness. For that moment, for that look alone, the trip to Harmony House seemed worth it. That wasn’t why she’d come, of course, but it was something she longed for. Down deep inside, where the old hurts were buried.