The Mustang’s engine echoed softly between the trees.
I parked near Marguerite’s grave.
For an hour, Tate and I sat without the radio.
He told me about classes.
Roommate problems.
A professor he liked.
A girl he insisted he was not dating despite describing her for eleven straight minutes.
Then he said:
“You think Mom would’ve liked college?”
“For you?”
“No. Like if she’d gone.”
Marguerite had never finished college.
Family obligations.
Money.
Life.
“She would have loved chemistry.”
“Why?”
“She liked knowing why things changed when you mixed them.”
Tate smiled.
“That tracks.”
Afterward, we got out.
Stood by her stone.
The brass plaque on the Mustang’s dash reflected sunlight behind us.
That spring, I established the Marguerite Halloran Automotive Trade Scholarship.
I had been thinking about it for years.
The HOA case finally pushed me to act.
I partnered with a regional technical college program serving students from Forsyth, Hall, and Dawson counties.
Two-year support.
Automotive restoration.
Bodywork.
Engine repair.
First-generation students prioritized.
Not because I thought everyone needed to restore old Mustangs.
Because working on that car had kept my son and me talking through a period when both of us were capable of becoming silent.
Machines give people something to face together.
Sometimes that is enough to save a relationship.
Tate volunteered as a peer mentor whenever his UGA schedule allowed.
The first student funded was Riggs Holcomb.
His father had driven a tow truck for thirty years and died after being struck on Interstate 985.
Riggs had grown up around wreckers and engines.
He could identify most small blocks by sound but could not afford the training program without working nearly full-time.
The scholarship covered enough that he could reduce his hours.
In November, Riggs rebuilt his first carburetor.
He sent me a photograph.
Hands black with grime.
Smile huge.
I showed Tate.
“He looks happier than I did.”
“You complain more.”
“Your mother used to say that.”
“She was right.”
I had Marguerite’s brass dash plaque reproduced by a small metal shop in Roswell.
Not exactly.
I refused to duplicate the words “For my two favorite men.”
Those belonged to us.
Instead, each scholarship graduate received a small brass plate inspired by it.
BUILD SOMETHING WORTH KEEPING.
On the back, privately engraved:
MARGUERITE HALLORAN AUTOMOTIVE TRADE SCHOLARSHIP.
Hadley never knew about that.
I was glad.
Not everything that comes from conflict needs to remain connected to the person who caused the conflict.
Some things should be allowed to grow past them.
Almost a year after the afternoon Brennan and Murchison saluted me in the driveway, I came home to find Adelaide Crisp standing beside the mailbox.
She held a folder.
I nearly laughed.
“Please tell me that is not an HOA violation.”
She smiled.
“Community budget.”
“Worse.”
“I need your signature confirming receipt.”
“Do I have to sign?”
“No.”
“Then why are you asking?”
“Because I enjoy making police chiefs nervous.”
I signed.
She looked toward the garage.
The Mustang door was open.
“You know something?”
“What?”
“I hated that car for six months.”