A neighbor named Calvin Webb hurried across the street before I reached the front door. "Grayson, a tow truck came for the Ford around ten. The driver said somebody reported it as abandoned. I told him you drive the thing every week."
"Did he say who ordered the tow?"
"He showed me a city complaint number. Delilah was standing in her driveway when they hooked it up. She didn't say a word, but she sure watched."
I felt the old anger rise, hot and clean. Sarah had ridden in that pickup through our first apartment years, our son's first camping trip, and the summer we drove north because she wanted to see the redwoods again before beginning another round of treatment. It was a vehicle in need of paint, not a derelict thing awaiting disposal.
I called the city towing office. The woman who answered confirmed that a complaint had described the truck as inoperable and abandoned for months. She could not tell me whether a public inspector had physically verified that claim. The tow yard was twenty miles away and would charge $450 to release the vehicle, with storage beginning the following morning.
I went there before dinner. The yard smelled of hot metal, old tires, and dust, and the man behind the counter spoke through a small opening in a scratched window. He repeated the allegation that the truck had not moved in months, then looked faintly embarrassed when I showed him photographs of the Ford at a parts store two days earlier.
"I don't make those decisions," he said. "I just release the vehicle when the fees are paid."
I paid because leaving it there would create more damage than winning an argument at that window. The total came to $485 after administrative charges. I collected the receipt, photographs of the vehicle's condition, the tow authorization number, and the attendant's name.
Then I climbed inside and turned the key. The old engine caught on the first attempt, settled into its familiar rough idle, and made the man behind the window look away. I sat with both hands on the wheel for a moment, remembering Sarah laughing when we had first brought the truck home because one of its doors had needed a shove from the outside.
"Still starts," I whispered.
The drive home took forty minutes. I kept the radio off. Anger had a way of making every passing car seem too slow, and I had no interest in letting Delilah add a traffic citation to her collection of inventions.
Marcus was waiting in my kitchen when I arrived. I had told him only that the truck had been towed, and he took one look at my face before setting down the paper bag containing our dinner. He put two plates on the table and waited until I finished telling him what happened.
"You need to contest that tow through the city process," he said. "Ask for the inspection and authorization records. Whatever you think the caller intended, make them prove the legal basis for taking it."
"You sound like your mother when she was angry."