She Hired My Company to Haul Her Late Father’s $900,000 Car to Arizona in Five Days. Then She Climbed Into My Cab

I pulled off at the next exit and parked in the gravel at the edge of a canyon road.

“One point two million,” she said. “That pays the IRS. That pays off my brother. That’s more than Dad ever dreamed it was worth.”

“It is.”

“And the loan, and the installments, and keeping it… that’s years of payments. On a teacher’s salary.”

“It is.”

She looked at me. “What would you do?”

“I’m not going to tell you that.”

“Colter.”

“It’s your father’s car, Audra. Not mine.”

She sat with her hands in her lap for a long time while the sun dropped toward the mountains. Then she opened the door, walked to the back of the trailer and lowered the ramp.

“Help me get it out,” she said.

We rolled the roadster down onto the gravel. She handed me the keys.

“You drive,” she said. “I hit mailboxes.”

We drove that car up the canyon road with the top down, the two of us, her hair coming loose from its bun, the light going orange and gold on the rocks. At the overlook, I pulled over. We sat there with the engine ticking and didn’t say anything at all.

Then she called the auction house.

“No, thank you,” she said. “It’s not for sale.”

She hung up. She turned to me.

And she kissed me, in the front seat of her father’s car, at the edge of a canyon in Arizona, like we’d been driving toward it for five days.

We drove back to Baltimore slowly. It took eight days. Nobody minded.

The IRS installment agreement was approved in December. Her brother took the buyout. The house is hers.

The roadster lives in her garage now. On Saturdays, I help her keep it running.

She still hits the mailbox sometimes.

I’ve never fixed it. I like the dent.