“Yes.”
“Tire pressure?”
“Grandpa.”
“Just checking.”
“Yes.”
“Fuel?”
“Full.”
“Route home?”
“I know where we live.”
Frank smiled.
Emily folded her arms.
“Are you done?”
He thought about it.
“No.”
She groaned.
“Keep a paper copy of insurance somewhere besides your phone. Phones die.”
“I already put one in the glove box.”
Frank stopped.
Emily smiled triumphantly.
“Anything else?”
He searched for something.
Nothing came.
“Very good,” he said.
Marcus leaned toward Emily. “I think you broke him.”
“Finally.”
Frank pretended to be offended.
Then his expression softened.
He looked at the car, at Emily, and at the small dealership envelope containing the second key. Something about the scene reminded him of a Sunday afternoon many years earlier when Laura had learned to ride a bicycle in the parking lot behind their church. Frank had held the back of the seat while she pedaled, running beside her until Helen shouted from across the lot that he had to let go sometime.
He had let go.
Laura had ridden twenty feet before realizing nobody was holding her.
Then she had crashed into a hedge.
She had come out scratched, furious, and proud.
Parenthood, Frank had decided that day, consisted largely of deciding when your hand on the seat had become more dangerous than the possibility of falling.
Grandparenthood was not so different.
Emily did not need him in the passenger seat every mile.
She needed to know he was somewhere behind her if the road became difficult.
That was enough.
He reached into his pocket for the key fob Marcus had placed there a few minutes earlier.
Frank held up the key.
“This is it?” she asked.
“This is it.”
Her face lit with the same astonished happiness she had worn the first time she saw the car, except now nothing could make her feel foolish for it.
She reached out but stopped just before taking the key.
“I can’t believe this is really happening.”
Frank placed the fob in her palm and folded her fingers gently over it.
Marcus smiled from beside the driver’s door.
“Here are your keys,” he said. “Drive safe out there.”
Emily looked at the blue sedan, then at Marcus, then back at her grandfather. Her eyes filled again.
“Thank you, Grandpa,” she said softly. “For everything.”
Frank touched her shoulder.
“You earned it, sweetheart. Drive carefully.”