The Car Keys in the Parking Lot

County J had been plowed, but not well. The truck had no weight in the back, and on the curve by the Lutheran church the rear end stepped out on me like a dog pulling a leash. I caught it. My hands shook the rest of the way.

Walt was at the window when I pulled in. He was always at the window. He opened the door before I got to the step and looked past me at the truck.

“What happened to your Chevy?” he said.

“Long story,” I said.

“I got time,” he said. “That’s about all I got.”

So I told him while I made his oatmeal. I did not mean to. It just came out, the way things come out when you are tired and somebody old and kind is listening.

Walt listened the whole way through. Then he stirred brown sugar into his oatmeal for a long time.

“My first wife’s brother took my truck once,” he said. “Nineteen sixty-four. Said he’d bring it back Sunday. Brought it back in March.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Should have. Was too proud to make a fuss.” He pointed his spoon at me. “Don’t be too proud, Sheila. But don’t be mean, either. Those are two different ditches, and the road’s in between.”

I thought about that all day.

I had five clients that Wednesday. I was late to three of them. At my last stop, Mrs. Halvorsen’s daughter met me at the door and asked if everything was all right, because I was never late, and I said yes, everything was fine, and went in and washed her mother’s hair.

By the time I got home my feet were numb inside my boots. I sat in the truck in the driveway for a minute with the engine off, listening to it tick, and that was the only time that week I cried.

Jake came home from his classes at the tech college around seven. He is in the automotive program at Mid-State, and he works weekends at the tire shop in town. He saw the truck in the driveway and came in the back door already mad.

“Where’s your car?” he said.

I told him.

He stood in the kitchen with his coat still on, just like I had the night before. Jake has his father’s temper and, thank the Lord, not much else of his father.

“I’m going over there,” he said. “Me and Tyler can be there in an hour.”

“No, you’re not,” I said.

“Mom. It’s your car. It’s in your name.”

“I know whose name it’s in.”

“Then call the sheriff,” he said. “Seriously. Call Dave Miller. He’ll go over there and make her give it back.”

He was right, in a way. I could have called the sheriff’s department. My name was the only one on that title, and I had not given anybody permission to take it to Wisconsin Rapids.