“He’s going to be okay, Mom,” Jace said.

They were on the way back from the hospital, where Dad would have to spend the night. He had a broken leg and lots of bumps and bruises, but Jace was right. Dad would be okay.

Mom was gripping the steering wheel so hard that her fingers were red and her knuckles were white.

“You’re getting rid of that toy car,” she said through her teeth.

“What?” Jace asked. “Why? It wasn’t the car’s fault.”

“I knew it would be trouble the minute you and your dad got back from that dumb garage sale,” Mom said.

She sniffed. Jace thought she’d cry again. “But it was Sam’s fault, not the car’s,” he said quietly.

“I’m not going to discuss this, Jace!” Mom snapped, taking her eyes off the road to glare at her son. “The car goes, today!”

In the back, Ruth giggled. “Car goes!” she chanted. “Car goes!”

“Shut it, Ruth,” Jace said.

“Don’t you talk to your sister like that,” Mom said. She pulled up to the curb in front of Sam’s house. The toy car was in the driveway.

“Out,” Mom snapped.

Jace grunted and threw the door open. He barely had a chance to close it again before his mom’s car sped off down Juniper Lane and drove toward their house.

“There’s no reason to be mad at me,” Jace muttered. “You’re the one who sent Dad out to donate all the stuff he bought.”

He stood at the bottom of Sam’s driveway and looked at the bent lamp post a little way down the street.

Most of the wreckage had been cleared already. Still, pieces of his dad’s old sedan were still here and there, strewn all around the lawn and the gutter.

Jace walked over for a closer look.

He knelt down and picked up a chunk of orange plastic—a piece of one of Dad’s turn signals. Jace tossed it back onto the lawn.

Not far off was half the rearview mirror. Jace picked it up and looked at his reflection for a minute. His eyes were still red and his cheeks were still stained from crying.

It had been a long day at the hospital.

Jace dropped the mirror. He looked down at it as it reflected the late afternoon sun back at him. Next to it, near a white-headed dandelion, was the rabbit’s foot keychain his dad had bought at the garage sale.

“Dad will want this,” he said to himself. He grabbed it, and then walked over to the toy car in Sam’s driveway.

Jace leaned in and hung the rabbit’s foot from the rearview mirror. Then he sighed and started to push the car down the block toward his house. He didn’t want to drive it again. He pushed it right into their garage, next to his mom’s station wagon, where Dad’s sedan should have been parked. In its place, the little toy sports car looked pretty ridiculous.

Mom stuck her head into the garage from the door to the kitchen. “Dinner, two minutes,” she said. She was still angry. Jace could tell.

“What are we having?” Jace asked.

As the door closed, he barely heard her reply, “Leftover tuna casserole.”

Jace kicked the little red car, leaving a dent in the right side. The lights flickered on and off. The little rabbit’s foot swung back and forth.

Jace watched it swing for a moment. Then he went inside.

“As soon as dinner is over,” his mom said the moment he sat down, “that car goes in the garbage.”

Jace picked up his fork and poked at the lukewarm cube of noodles, fish, and cracker crumbs on his plate.