Gray looked over at Cassidy and muttered, “Et tu, Brute?”
She frowned, confused.
He explained, “It’s Latin for, And you, Brutus?They were the last words Julius Caesar said before his best friend betrayed him and murdered him.They meant, Even you betrayed me, too?”
“Who’s Julius Caesar?”Noah demanded.
Cassidy answered, “The Emperor of Rome two thousand years ago.He was a soldier.”
“You’d enjoy reading about him,” Gray added.
Noah scribbled in his notebook as Cassidy looked around for a place to sit.Gray fetched the lawn chair that Sully favored and set it well away from the garage doors for her.
Noah clambered up into the passenger seat of the engine without waiting for permission, which seemed to be his standard approach to most situations.He buckled himself in and consulted his notebook as Gray settled himself behind the wheel.
Noah said briskly, “Okay.I’ve been thinking about your problem, and I think you should go slower.”
“I’m already going as slow as the engine will move in reverse.”
“Then go more left.”
“If I go more left, I’ll hit the door frame.”
“Then go more right.”
“Noah.”
“What?”
“Directional advice requires knowing which direction is correct.”
Noah considered this seriously.“What if I stand behind the truck and tell you when you’re about to hit something?”
“Absolutely not.You’re not standing behind a moving fire engine.”
“I’d be really far back.”
“No.”
“Fine.”Noah settled back in his seat.“I guess I’ll give you moral support.”
Gray made another attempt.He got the angle right this time—he could feel it, the geometry was right—but the rear end drifted six inches wide on the gravel transition and he clipped a cone.
“That was close,” Noah said encouragingly.“That was really close.And you only got one cone.”
From outside, Walter’s voice floated up: “Twenty-seven!”
Gray pulled the engine forward and stopped.He sat with his hands on the wheel and breathed.
He would come back tomorrow and try again.And the day after that.And every day after that until he got it right.The town needed at least one person who could drive the fire truck.If, God forbid, a fire broke out nobody could get the engine with its hoses and 1500 gallons of water to the blaze, people could die.
He had to keep trying.It was as simple as that.
He was aware, distantly, that his refusal to quit was about more than the fire engine.Somewhere beneath the cones and math and determination not to be bested by a machine was an understanding that went all the way to his bones.He knew what it meant when people walked away from things that were hard.
He wasn’t that man.He would never be that man.
Bonnie arrived at four-fifteen to collect the kids.
