Chapter 3 Route Nine Remembers
POV MARA QUINN
Ironvale remembered everything and improved most of it for entertainment.
By Tuesday afternoon, three people had found reasons to visit Quinn Upholstery.
Mrs. Peale needed a dining chair repaired but had not brought the chair.
Randy Holt wanted to know whether Mara still stitched motorcycle seats, though the sign outside said MOTORCYCLE SEATS in letters eight inches tall.
And Bonnie Cates, who had known Mara since kindergarten, arrived carrying peach cobbler.
"Funeral food," Bonnie said.
"The funeral was Saturday."
"Delayed grief."
"That is not a category."
"It is in my kitchen."
Bonnie set the cobbler on the counter and looked through the front window toward Mercer Garage.
Cole was outside moving a compressor.
Bonnie sighed.
"Still broad in the shoulders."
Mara stared at her.
"What? My eyesight is fine."
"You have grandchildren."
"That has never affected eyesight."
Mara returned to the seat she was stitching.
Bonnie lowered her voice.
"Town says he's staying."
"Town should read the tax records. Less romantic."
"Town also says Rowan met him."
Mara stopped the machine.
There it was.
Not cruelty. Not exactly.
Interest.
People who loved you could still behave like your pain belonged partly to them because they had witnessed it.
"Rowan is eighteen," Mara said. "Whatever conversation she has with Cole is hers."
Bonnie's face softened.
"I remember when you brought her home."
"So do I."
"I remember Deke sitting on your porch with a grocery bag and crying before he knocked."
Mara looked down at the black leather under her hands.
She had forgotten that.
Or stored it somewhere she did not visit.
Bonnie touched the counter.
"Nobody knew whose she was."
"Some people guessed."
"We did."
Mara raised an eyebrow.
"Fine. We all guessed."
Outside, Cole straightened and put a hand on his lower back.
Bonnie smiled.
"Still broad. Less indestructible."
Mara hated the laugh that escaped her.
Cole looked toward the window.
For one second, he smiled too.
That was worse than gossip.
POV COLE MERCER
By Wednesday, Cole understood the town had given him a temporary job.
He was a subject.
At the gas station, people asked about Arizona without listening to the answer.
At the diner, the waitress called him Rook and then apologized to Mara, who was not there.
At the hardware store, Mr. Diaz rang up drainpipe and said, "Don't screw this up twice."
Cole paid and said, "Planning not to."
Mr. Diaz nodded as if that were the minimum acceptable response.
It was.
That afternoon, Rowan appeared in Bay Three wearing safety glasses and carrying a carburetor.
"Mom says you have the ultrasonic cleaner running."
"I do."
"Can I use it?"
"Your shop."
"Twenty percent my mom's. Thirty percent yours. Twenty club trust. Thirty dead-man homework."
Cole looked at her.
"Deke explain the percentages?"
"I do math."
"So does your mother."
"I've heard."
She set the carburetor on the bench.
Cole showed her the cleaner controls, then stepped back.
She worked without asking for help.
He wanted to ask everything.
First word.
First tooth.
Did she like thunderstorms.
Who taught her to ride a bicycle.
Had she ever needed stitches.
Did Mara date.
That last question disgusted him with its selfishness, so he buried it deeper than the rest.
Rowan said, "You can ask one."
Cole blinked.
"What?"
"One question. Today."
He leaned against the bench.
She did not look at him.
He chose carefully.
"What do you want to do after community college?"
Rowan glanced over.
"That's your one?"
"Yes."
"Mechanical engineering. Maybe. Or fabrication. I like building things more than fixing what somebody else broke."
Cole absorbed the sentence.
"Good answer."
"You?"
"What did I want?"
"Yeah."
"At eighteen? Get out of Ironvale."
"Did."
"Eventually."
"Was it worth it?"
There were easy lies.
No.
Yes.
Not the way I did it.
Cole went with the one that cost something.
"I built a life I respect. I don't respect how I got there."
Rowan nodded and returned to the carburetor.
At the open garage door, Mara stood with two paper cups.
Cole had not heard her approach.
She handed one to Rowan.
Then one to him.
Tea.
No sugar.
He looked at it.
Mara shrugged.
"People change."
The words were his from Monday.
He took the cup.
"Some of us."
Her eyes narrowed.
Then she almost smiled.
Route Nine carried a line of trucks past the garage.
For a few minutes, the three of them stood in the same bay while rain started against the roof.
Nobody called it family.
That would have been too much and too soon.
Still, Cole understood something uncomfortable.
The town did not remember only the night he left.
It remembered every day Mara stayed.
POV MARA QUINN
The county inspector arrived before closing.
He was twenty-seven and kept calling Mara ma'am.
She tolerated it for six minutes.
"Mr. Ellis, if you call me ma'am again, I'm adding a consulting fee."
Cole coughed into his hand.
The inspector smiled.
"Yes, Mara."
They walked the rear drainage line.
Cole took notes.
Mara noticed he no longer interrupted experts to prove he understood engines.
Some growth came in boring clothes.