On November 18, 2017, she brought home a small brass plaque. Tate drilled the holes, I held the glove-box door steady, and Marguerite fastened it with tiny rivets. It read, "For my two favorite men." Neither of us knew then how often those six words would become the reason to keep going into the garage.
After she died, Tate stopped working on the car for nearly six months. I did not ask him to explain why. The parts collected dust, the radio in the garage stayed silent, and I sometimes sat on an overturned bucket looking at the empty workbench where Marguerite used to sort the small screws we left everywhere. Then one Saturday, Tate came down in his old soccer sweatshirt and asked whether we had ever finished setting the rear differential backlash.
I found the manual. He found the torque wrench. We worked until the porch light came on, barely talking, and when he went inside I heard him crying in the kitchen. I cried too, though I waited until I was sure he could not hear me.
We finished the Mustang over the following two years. We rebuilt the four-speed, installed a fresh 289 V8, replaced rotten floor sections, rebuilt the suspension, and searched half the Southeast for trim that would not look like cheap imitation chrome. Tate developed a mechanic's patience that surprised me, and I learned that he noticed when my hands trembled at certain memories. Sometimes we spoke about his mother for an entire afternoon. Other times we did not say her name once, and she was still present in everything we touched.
By 2023 the Roswell house had become too heavy to carry. Marguerite's porch swing hung outside the back door, and every evening I could picture her there with a book and a glass of tea. Tate was preparing for college, my commute had grown longer, and the rooms we did not use seemed to echo. I sold the house and bought a four-bedroom place in Briarwood Glen Estates, a subdivision in the southern part of Cederville.
The new house had ordinary brick, pine-straw beds, and a two-car garage I painted deep green because Marguerite once said the inside of a workshop ought to resemble the bottom of an old Coca-Cola bottle. It had no porch swing. That was important at the time. There was enough room for Tate when he came home and enough quiet for me when he was away.
I did not announce my profession to the neighbors. At work I was Chief Halloran, the man who signed budgets, listened to disciplinary appeals, and answered difficult questions when a patrol call went wrong. At home I was a widower in jeans with a dented 2014 Ford F-150 and a faded UGA baseball cap. I wanted to be allowed to stand in my own driveway without explaining myself.
Hadley Lockwood arrived two weekends after closing, carrying a key-lime pound cake on a porcelain plate decorated with painted flowers. She wore a coral blouse, white capris, and sandals with little gold buckles that made a delicate clicking sound on the walkway. Her pearl-white Mercedes sat at the curb, washed so carefully that I could see the driveway reflected in its doors. She introduced herself as the homeowners association president, a position she had held for nine years.