“Ma’am?” James said. “Can I help you?”
The woman jerked around to look at him. In her eyes, James saw something he recognized, proof that she was having just about the worst day anyone could have. “I know I can’t leave ithere,” she said, her voice hard but filled with fear. “But the thing is, I don’t think it will go another foot.”
James considered making a joke about the car's condition, but decided against it. He remembered that he’d left for work early this morning; he had time to help her, if she wanted it. “Where are you off to? I live about five minutes back down the road. We can grab my car and head wherever you’re going, as long as it’s in Millbrook. Outside of that, I can help you after my meeting.”
The woman’s lower lip quivered, and for a moment, James thought she was going to burst into tears. She leaned against the side of the car and put her hands on her face.
“Hey,” James said, his voice tender. “It’s just a car, you know? It wasn’t your fault.”
But the woman’s shoulders shook, as though she’d wrecked the car instead of riding it till its smoky end. “I have to get to the hospital,” she said.
James’s heart shot into his throat. In a second, everything clicked: the woman’s tan face, her big eyes, her messy black curls. This was Carmen Vasquez’s daughter. She couldn’t be anyone else.
She’d come to face her past. What a heavy thing.
“I can take you there,” James said, not wanting to embarrass her by telling her he recognized her. If Carmen’s daughter wanted to talk about Carmen, James would respond in turn. But he knew better than most that talking about your pain was not easy.
He didn’t even know if Carmen was still alive.
The woman tucked her dark curls behind her ears and eyed him suspiciously. She looked like the type of woman who hadn’t been able to trust anyone in a while. James wondered who’d been the reason for the rift between mother and daughter. If Carmen had abandoned her daughter, or in some way shovedher out of her life, it meant that her daughter probably had abandonment issues. Even at her age—maybe late thirties or early forties—that could wreak havoc on your soul.
“I guess I can let it get towed,” the woman said of the car. “If it isn’t too much trouble for you to take me?”
“I can call an auto shop to come get it,” James said, reaching for his phone.
The woman sniffed. “I don’t really have the money to, um, get it fixed.” She looked mortified to admit it.
“Let’s just see what they say,” James said. “Come on.”
James and the woman walked side by side down the sidewalk back to James’s place as James called Marvin at the auto shop and explained the situation. “I have to get the driver to the hospital,” he said. “She’s visiting someone, and it’s urgent.” Marvin was as easy as ever to deal with and said he’d have his grandson tow the car within the hour. “Thanks a bunch, Marv,” James said. “I’ll see you later.”
The woman tilted her head and looked at James with a mix of concern and gratefulness. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“Don’t mention it.”
James watched as Carmen’s daughter buckled herself into the passenger seat and crossed her arms over her chest. Always, she was jittery with nerves, as though expecting something to come up and bite her. James still didn’t know her name, but he reasoned that she didn’t know his either. He started the engine and backed out of the driveway.
“I always liked the look of that house,” the woman said, nodding toward the Victorian. “A bully I went to high school with lived there, though, which made me hate it.”
“We bought it from a couple who won the lottery and moved to the Bahamas.” James laughed at the memory. “Must have been your bully’s parents?”
“Good grief,” the woman said, trying a smile. “Bad people really do get all the luck, huh?”
But in James’s line of work, he saw all kinds of people undergoing what they might have called “bad luck.” Bad luck didn’t care if you were good or bad or ugly or pretty or smart or dumb. It came, and it destroyed.
“But I’m sure he’s outgrown his bullying ways,” the woman said, as though she could read James’s mind. “He was just a teenager. We all were.”
“I’d hate to be judged by what I did as a teenager,” James agreed.
“We learn all our lessons too late.”
James paused at the same stop sign where the woman’s car sat, smoking. “I’m James, by the way. James Murphy.”
“I’m Elena.”
“And you’re from Millbrook?”
“Born and raised,” she said. “But I haven’t been back in about five years.”
