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“PLEASE,” CARMEN MACLEAN begged as she pushed up her ’87 Volkswagen Beetle’s deck lid. “Please, don’t do this to me, you old, infernal bucket of rust!” She glared at the mound of baffling mechanics and wires. There was a choking sound followed by a sputtering before the engine ground to a stop.
“I’m sorry. I take it back; do not quit on me now. You are new! New! You practically just rolled off the lot!” She wiggled a few of the wires in a futile effort. Her dad, for so many years, had attempted to teach her about cars. In her infinite teenage wisdom, what had she done instead? She learned how to wing her eyeliner and followed boys around the park. She wasted countless hours in asinine arguments with her siblings. All that time, she could have been learning how to get herself out of messes like this one. Pressing her damp brow against the sharp lip of rusting metal, she squeezed her eyes shut and breathed.
“In through the nose and out through the mouth.” After working through the mantra a few times, Carmen closed the lid with a slam that reverberated off the surrounding wooded hills and stepped away from the car.
Carmen moved to the middle of the road and pushed herself onto her tiptoes, spinning in a slow circle while she craned her neck. In every direction, rolling hills thick with pine trees bordered the curving ribbon of asphalt. She completed the motion again. But no houses magically appeared, and no amount of hopping or squinting made a difference. Shoving her hair from her face, she released a frustrated growl. If she was honest, she blamed her brother for this.
The sun hung fat and low in the sky, steadily losing its interest in the day. Carmen could not remember how long it had been since she passed anything that resembled civilization. Lost as she had been in rampaging thoughts, the feeling of the road passing beneath her wheels had been her song of freedom. She knew she was moving in the right direction, and the forward momentum was all she needed.
Retrieving her cell from her purse, Carmen scowled down at the screen. The thing struggled to open its search engine, growing hot in her palm before prompting her to switch on the GPS. She did, typed in tow trucks/garages/mechanics and closed her eyes with a silent plea to the Gods of cell phone service and technology. Stevenson and Sons Garage. The name and number topped the list in bright blue.
With a breath of relief, she pressed the link. A long moment passed before the call option came up. “Hello?” a man’s voice answered abruptly after the first ring.
“He—” Carmen’s voice came out in a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Hello, is this the garage?”
A pause. “This is.”
“I need help. I don’t know exactly where I am, and my car made some weird noises and died. Your place came up as closest to my location . . .” She trailed off and waited for a response.
There was a long pause. The man on the line must have heard the restrained panic in her voice, for his tone softened somewhat when he answered. “How long since you went through town?”
“I’m sorry, I’ve never driven this way before. I’m not sure.”
A long, suffering sigh sounded on the other end. “All right. What direction were you headed?”
She thought for a moment. She had mapped out the route to where her brother was staying before she left Vancouver. “North, on Highway 39. I was trying to get to Cascade Creek.”
A whistle sounded through the line. “I’ll leave now. I hope it doesn’t take me too long to find you. It’s almost dinnertime.” The line went dead.
Carmen stared at the silent phone for a moment, her mouth agape. “Top-notch customer service,” she grumbled. After tossing her cell back into her purse, she wrapped her arms around her ribs and paced up and down the road beside her vehicle. The cooling engine emitted a tick tick sound. Besides the call of birds somewhere in the trees, it was the only sound in the darkening hills.
****
CARMEN WAS SHIVERING by the time a plume of dust and an ominous rattling of chains announced the tow truck’s arrival an hour and a half later. The truck passed her, then reversed, stopping a foot from her car’s bumper in a well-practiced motion.
A middle-aged man unfolded himself from the truck, dusting his hands on his worn overalls before extending a broad palm to her. “Dan Stevenson. Sorry that it took so long. You were way out here.” His sharp blue eyes wandered over her, paused at her cheek. One dark brow rose a fraction, but he didn’t comment.
Carmen shook the offered hand, ignoring his look as she had done with the others received over the last few days. “I’m Carmen. Carmen Maclean. I’m just glad you’re here, really; you’re my hero for coming so late.”
As significant in stature as he was, Dan was short on small talk. With a grunt and a nod, he turned to Carmen’s vehicle and circled it once. Running his fingers over a close-trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, he studied the bug for a moment before shaking his head, releasing another grunt, and setting to work connecting the automobiles for transport.
When he finished, Dan pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped his grease-stained hands before going to the passenger side door of the tow truck. There was a groan of hinges as he opened it and stepped aside. “Climb in,” he said.
Carmen pushed her hands into the pocket of her shorts and rocked up on her toes, hesitating. “Do you have any idea what’s wrong with it?”
Dan gave the Beetle a pointed look. “Could be a number of things.”
“I suppose.” Carmen chewed at her lip, then sighed. It wasn’t like she could stay here.
“You getting in or not?” Dan’s stern façade made her feel lighter somehow. “Someone else may be along in an hour or two if you’d prefer to wait.”
“I’m getting in.” Carmen inclined her head and dipped into a small mock curtsey. “Thank you, kind sir.” She flashed him a tired grin before hoisting herself up and sliding onto the truck’s bench seat. As Dan shut the door behind her, Carmen was sure a smile twitched beneath the cover of his facial hair.
There was a calm, paternal air about Dan, and his gruff silence soothed Carmen as they drove. She cast glances at him on the rare occasions a car passed in the opposite lane.
“Do you live in Willow Brook?” she asked after a few quiet moments.
Dan nodded. “Most of my life.”
Though he was likely in his sixties, he was a handsome man. The firm line of his nose bent to the right. Perhaps a souvenir from an old break? It looked like the same crookedness so many of the hockey players in her high school had sported. The greys threading his thick beard lent him a sophisticated air, rather than age him.
Carmen chewed at her lip, contemplating questioning him more, but she turned back to the window instead. The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable, which shocked her. She wasn’t sure she could remember a time she had sat quietly beside a stranger and felt relaxed about it. The tow truck’s cab smelled of musky, hard-working male, metal, and grease with underlying notes of stale coffee. The scents reminded her of her childhood, and a sudden lump clogged her throat.
Memories of going for ice cream and how the space in her dad’s old Chevy’s cab had grown tighter every year bubbled to the surface. When her brother hit six feet tall at age fifteen, they made him ride in the truck’s bed. He would open the little sliding window and poke her and Marcy through the opening until one of them would slide it closed, sometimes on his arm, and lock it shut. Those rides often ended in an argument, but they were still some of Carmen’s most treasured memories. A snippet from a time when they had all been happy. Now, Jake and Marcy couldn’t stand to be in the same room together.
Leaning against the warm glass of the window, Carmen swallowed. Unfamiliar pine-choked landscape passed in a dusky, eye-numbing blur. The dying sun painted the serpentine curves of asphalt in bright oranges and pinks. The beauty of the landscape was at complete odds with her mood.
The long days of stress chose that moment to strike full force, and Carmen’s hands began to shake. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed back against the nerves, focused on the engine’s hum, the AC’s whir. With a strength that surprised her, Carmen blocked thoughts of Billy, and the last few days, from her mind. Long, focused breaths pulled deep into her lungs worked to undo the knot in her stomach and still the clamouring in her head before it could throb. Dan glanced sideways when one of her deep breaths caught and emerged suspiciously close to a sob, but he remained silent, and so did she.