“Marguerite.”
“Tate is twelve.”
“I’m aware.”
“The two of you need a project that doesn’t involve police reports or video games.”
“Do you know what that thing is going to cost to restore?”
“No.”
“That concerns me.”
She pointed toward the stage.
“Bid.”
We bought it.
Later, whenever I accused her of making reckless financial decisions, she reminded me that I was the one who had raised the paddle.
She called that legal accountability.
Tate and I spent four years rebuilding that car.
Marguerite participated enough to make sure we never forgot whose idea it had been.
The body came apart first.
Then the suspension.
Then the four-speed transmission.
We replaced rusted panels, rebuilt the rear end, tracked down period-correct trim, rewired the electrical system, and eventually dropped in a fresh 289 V8.
The pearl-white paint was Marguerite’s choice.
Tate wanted black.
I wanted Highland green.
Marguerite won because she always did when her argument began with the words, “Imagine it in sunlight.”
Tate chose the cherry-red interior.
I thought it would be too loud.
He was right.
Marguerite had a small brass plaque made for the glove-box door.
She riveted it in herself on November 18, 2017.
It read:
FOR MY TWO FAVORITE MEN.
She never told us where she ordered it.
After she died, Tate and I finished the car.
For months, neither of us worked on it.
The garage felt wrong without her coming through the door carrying lemonade or telling us the music was too loud.
Then one Saturday, Tate came downstairs carrying two socket sets.
He said, “Mom is going to haunt us if we leave this thing unfinished.”
So we finished it.
When the engine fired for the first time, Tate laughed.
I cried.
Neither of us mentioned either reaction.
We simply stood in the garage listening to that small-block idle while the brass plaque caught the overhead light.
I stayed in our Roswell house until 2023.
Then one evening I found myself sitting alone on the porch swing Marguerite had chosen sixteen years earlier.
I realized I had spent four years trying to preserve a home that had already become a museum.
Every room had a memory.
Every cabinet.
Every stain in the driveway.
Every small imperfection.
Some people find comfort in that.
I found myself becoming afraid to change anything.
That was when I understood it was time to leave.
Tate was preparing for college.
I did not need the large house anymore.
I bought a four-bedroom new-construction home in Briarwood Glen Estates in Cederville.
Brick front.
Pine-straw beds.
Two-car garage.
Quiet cul-de-sac.
I painted the garage walls myself in a deep green that looked almost exactly like an old Coca-Cola bottle when sunlight hit it.
I told no one in the neighborhood I was chief of police.
There was no deception involved.
Nobody asked.
On weekends, I looked exactly like what I was: a middle-aged widower in old jeans, worn work shoes, and a UGA cap.
I drove a 2014 Ford F-150 with a dent in the tailgate from a Lowe’s parking lot incident I still maintain was not my fault.
My badge stayed in the glove compartment unless I needed it.
I had not moved to Briarwood Glen to be Chief Halloran.
I had moved there to be Sterling.
Marguerite had been a quiet person.
I was trying to remember how to be one too.
Hadley Lockwood arrived two weekends after I closed on the house.
Pearl-white Mercedes GLE.
Coral blouse.
White capri pants.
Gold sandals.
Flowered porcelain plate in one hand.
Publix key-lime pound cake on top.
Hadley was in her early fifties, though she spoke with the polished certainty of someone who believed age and authority were simply different versions of the same privilege.
She had been president of the Briarwood Glen HOA for nine years.
She told me that within the first ninety seconds.
“We just love welcoming new families,” she said.
I told her I appreciated the cake.
She looked past me into the open garage.
The Mustang was visible under a cover.