3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Trent
A t the hardware store, Amir seems overwhelmed by choice.
The aisle is dominated with materials to make a marble run—slides, tubes, levers, and pretty much everything else you could imagine.
A few months ago, we made one with cardboard from the recycling bin and some tape, and ever since then, Amir has been obsessed with building a “real” one like those he’s seen in online videos.
“We can build it any way you want,” I say. “Your mom said we can attach it to the wall in the garage or make it free standing. If we don’t like what we build, we can take it apart and try something else another day.”
“What’s the budget?” he asks for the second time.
I’m not sure at five years old that he completely understands what a budget is or why it’s important, but he must have heard his mom tell me ten times before we left the house not to “blow the budget.” Emily would be the type to talk about budgets in all sorts of situations, so I’m sure the word is familiar, if not understandable.
“You can let me worry about the budget this time,” I say. “It’s my Christmas present to you. Just start picking things.” I gesture to the basket I’m holding in my hand. “We’ll figure out how to put everything together and what we want it to look like when we get you home.”
He nods, a little crease of concentration forming between his eyebrows as he strolls down the aisle, arms crossed. At the shoots and slides section, he stops.
“I think I’d like some of these?” He gazes up at me hopefully, and I tip my chin for him to pick some.
And after the first slide drops into my basket, Amir relaxes, picking up other building pieces, asking questions, clearly working out in his very intelligent brain what the marble masterpiece will look like in his head.
Here’s hoping we can actually create it in real life.
The thing I’ve been learning the last few months is that Amir’s imagination is much greater than his skill level or what’s realistic in terms of time, money, and ability.
But I like his drive. The intense desire to do well, to be the best, is such a Sullivan trait.
Once Amir seems satisfied, and I’m content that Emily isn’t going to want to murder me for the size or scope of the thing, we head up to the register. Stacy, the owner of the hardware store, greets us both with a smile.
As she rings up our purchases, she says, “Did you hear Bruce Mullen is looking to sell and retire in the spring?”
“No,” I say.
Bruce has owned the most popular car mechanic shop in town for years.
When I was a kid, we spent a lot of time there with my dad, under cars after hours.
The two of them had been good friends, and Bruce has continued to be good to my mom in the years since.
In my teenage years, he even offered to let me get under my mom’s car and help him fix problems, but I wasn’t ready then.
Sometimes I think memories of my dad are why I opted to try to get my automotive apprenticeship when I got out of jail. The scent of motor oil brings me a strange comfort, as though part of me can sink into the past, the time when I was close to my dad, without any conscious thought forming.
I also happen to be really good at fixing shit.
Like an extra sense of how to diagnose a car, how to repair it, even before I hook up diagnostics or run tests.
A client can describe what’s happening, and even if it’s not precise, I can get to the source of the problem.
Just last week, my boss, Earl Runions, told me he’d never been so glad to have taken a chance on an ex-con.
I don’t love the “ex-con” moniker, but I can’t deny that it fits. The fact that it’s still something he thinks about and comments on, even seven years after my release, is enough to make me feel sick to my stomach.
My nineteen-year-old self really didn’t consider or understand all the consequences of the choices I was making.
“I’ve heard from a few people in town who’ve made the drive to Utica that you’re a pretty talented mechanic,” Stacy says.
Even though it’s true, heat creeps up my chest and into my neck. Being told I’m good, in almost any context, makes me squirm.
“Have you thought about coming back here? Opening your own shop?” She pauses as she rings in the last item, the total appearing on the screen.
I flash my card to pay, my mind creaking to life with the implication she hasn’t directly stated.
“Taking over for Bruce?” She prods when I don’t react.
Having my own shop always felt like something for someday. But I don’t know about coming back to Little Falls, about building a life here , necessarily. Last year’s benefit turned a few people’s opinions of me around, but I don’t know if it’s enough.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” I lie.
“Well, you should,” Stacy says. “Little Falls will be lost without Bruce. So many of the companies in town are chains now, you know? No personal touch. They’ll take you for all you’re worth.”
I’m sure there are people in Little Falls who’d believe the same of me—that I’d cheat them somehow, be dishonest in my dealings.
“Yeah,” I hedge. “I don’t know. I appreciate the suggestion.” I give her a little nod and pass one of the bags for the marble run to Amir.
As we walk to my truck, Amir’s little hand engulfed in mine, my brain is on fire with all the ways I could not just run but improve on Bruce’s current business. Stacy hit a spark, and it’s ignited a wildfire.
“Did that lady say you could work in Little Falls?” Amir asks, his tone hopeful.
“Sort of,” I say, opening the truck door for him. “She was suggesting I could own my own auto repair shop. Like where I work at, but it’d be mine.”
“I think you should,” Amir says with a grin. “I could help.”
“You’d help me out?” I ask, returning his smile.
“I’m a good helper, right?”
“The best,” I confirm. “Thing is…” I take a deep breath and look him in the eye. “I just don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. I might need to talk to your mom about it.”
“She knows a lot,” Amir agrees.
“She does. One of the smartest people I know.” And I know she’ll be honest with me about how stupid this idea is.
“Do you want to do it?” Emily asks. It’s the first question she’s posed since Amir and I finished the marble run and he started playing with it.
“I don’t know. People don’t make a lot of comments to my face anymore, but I’m not sure enough people will trust me.”
“Didn’t Stacy imply, and I have heard people say, that they drive to Utica just so you can diagnose and work on their vehicle? It might be a bit of an uphill battle, but…” Emily bites her lip and tilts her head. “You’d win them over.”
I put my head down, fiddling with the screwdriver still in my hand.
If I’m being completely honest, I want the shop.
I want the opportunity. I want to prove to everyone in Little Falls that I’m more than what I did at nineteen.
The fundraiser was supposed to do that, but it didn’t convince all the people, and the event was a one-off, not sustained, easy for skeptics to miss or avoid.
This way, I’d be in their face, impossible to ignore. Definitely pros and cons to that scenario. A tough skin would be necessary.
“Do you have the money?” Em asks gently.
“I’ve been saving,” I admit. “No idea if it’ll be enough.”
“I think you should go talk to Bruce, see what he’s thinking, and then decide if you want to take it further. If this isn’t the right fit, something else will be.”
Reasonable, rational, good advice. My problem has always been that once I want something, I have a hard time veering off a path.
Once the course is set, I get tunnel vision.
If whatever Bruce says clicks for me, I’ll want it, even if I shouldn’t, even if I can’t.
The best thing I’ve ever done for myself is to stop wanting things intensely enough to make stupid decisions to get them, whether it’s jobs or women or anything else.
I’ve been coasting on the surface of what I could have, what I might want, for the last seven years, and it’s kept me mostly out of trouble.
“You’re a good friend, Em,” I say, setting down the screwdriver on the workbench and drawing her into a hug.
She comes willingly, her cheek pressed against my chest, her hands spanning my back.
The scent of lemon surrounds us, and I realize she must have been cleaning while Amir and I were building.
“So are you,” Emily says. “Everything you’ve done for me and Amir the last year has meant a lot—more than you know.”
“It would be nice to be closer,” I say, “though it would make it harder for me to pick your drunken ass up from The Flirty Englishman .”
“You’d still come.” She pokes my side, and I laugh.
“I would,” I say. “I’d feel terrible if it turned out you really were abducted by aliens.”
“They exist.”
“And they’re smart.”
“And some of them might be hot.”
“Unlikely, but sure.”
Emily laughs and steps away from me, sliding me an amused glance. “I’m a firm believer that when you know what you want, you should go after it. You never know what life might have in store. Seize opportunities while you can.”
For anyone else, that might be good advice, but I really don’t know if it is for me. I haven’t trusted myself enough to go after what I want for years.
“I’ll talk to Bruce.”
“You’re coming to Christmas Day at my mom’s, right?”
“My mom and Grady will be there, so yeah,” I say with a shrug.
“Amir will be happy that his playmate will be available.” She stares at her son with open affection. “He’s been asking me about a brother or sister lately.”
“What brought that on?” I ask.
“Victoria, I think. He likes feeling like he’s a ‘big brother’ and he asked me when he could be one.” Her lips twist and then she frowns.
“Do you want more kids?”
“Yeah,” she says without hesitation. “More than anything, but I just...I don’t know.” She sighs and crosses her arms. “Life’s all about timing.”
Part of me wants to dig a little deeper, but another part of me doesn’t want to think about her with anyone in that way. Picking her up every Saturday from her failed dates has become one of the highlights of my week, and I don’t want to consider how I’d feel if she stopped calling.
“You’ll get there,” I say, slinging my arm around her shoulders and kissing her on the temple. “You’re a great mom. The aliens watching over us directing traffic wouldn’t waste that skill set on only one child.”
She laughs and pokes me in the ribs again. “Please. Now the hot aliens are god-like?”
“They’ve got their eye on you and your voice-to-text skills. You can’t convince me otherwise.”
“Trent,” Amir calls from the marble run. “I need the screwdriver. It’s getting stuck here. We’ve gotta fix it.”
I grab the screwdriver off the bench and go over to crouch down beside him, where it appears the marbles are congregating.
“Let’s get ’er done, buddy,” I say, settling in beside him.
When I glance over at Emily, she’s watching us, affection coating her expression.
“Want to learn some new skills?” I ask her.
“Absolutely not,” she says, “but feel free to teach him so I can stop calling a handyman for every little thing.”
“Who are you kidding?” I ask. “You call me.”
“Exactly. My handyman.” She grins and then disappears back inside her house.
I watch the spot she was in for a beat before Amir tugs on my sleeve, drawing my focus back to him.