I sat on Dennis’s old stool and stared at the sentence until the words blurred.
Someone knocked on the open side door.
Brian.
“Mom?”
I closed the notebook.
He stepped into the garage but stopped several feet away.
“Vanessa went home.”
I said nothing.
“She’s angry.”
“So am I.”
“I know.”
“No, Brian.
I don’t think you do.”
He looked toward the empty space where the car had been.
“I shouldn’t have sold it.”
“That is the easiest part to admit.”
His eyes met mine.
“I didn’t know Dad transferred it.”
“He told you it was mine.”
Brian’s expression changed.
I held up the notebook.
“He wrote it down.”
Brian lowered his head.
For once, there was no argument.
“I thought he meant emotionally,” he said eventually.
“Like he was leaving it for you to remember him by.”
“And somehow that made selling it acceptable?”
“No.”
“Then why did you do it?”
He sat on the edge of the workbench.
“Vanessa’s been trying to get these investors in a room for almost a year.
When the Paris opportunity came up, we didn’t have enough cash.
She said the car was sitting here doing nothing.
I knew what it was worth.
I convinced myself Dad would have wanted me to help my wife.”
I almost laughed.
“Your father wanted you to ask me.”
Brian nodded slowly.
“I know that now.”
“No.
You knew it yesterday.”
That silenced him.
The next several days were not dramatic in the way Vanessa seemed to expect.
There were no screaming matches in parking lots.
No threats.
No grand speeches.
There were phone calls.
Documents.
Bank records.
A meeting with Martin Hale, the attorney whose card Dennis had left in the drawer.
Martin confirmed that he had prepared the ownership transfer at Dennis’s request and witnessed the signatures.
The transfer had been properly filed.
Dennis had been fully competent when he signed it.
There was nothing ambiguous about the car.
It belonged to me.
The dealership canceled the purchase and returned the vehicle after its attorneys completed their review.
