Their faces and then the car began to blur. Before I could stop the tears from pouring over and spilling out, my cheeks were already wet.
Julianne’s lips trembled, and she began to cry too, quickly covering her mouth.
Sam wrapped his arms around me. “Please let us do this for you.”
“I don’t know how to even accept something like this. This just gets crazier every day, but in the best possible way. Not because of the things. It’s not the things.” The words came out funny and muffled, and I wasn’t sure if they could even understand me.
Sam put the remote in my hand and then hugged me to his side. “It’s a year old, excellent condition, and it has a nine point one safety rating. The keys are inside that remote. It’s a push-button start. I filled up the tank and checked the fluids myself. Will you drive us to dinner? I can show you what all the buttons do.”
I shook my head again. “I don’t think I should. I don’t have a lot of experience driving, and—”
“You drive Weston’s truck sometimes, don’t you?” Julianne asked.
I nodded.
“I need a ride to dinner before I starve to death.” Sam was trying to tease me as gently as he could, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
I wiped my eyes and looked to Julianne. “Have you had dinner?”
She nodded. “Go spend some time with your…”
“My Sam,” I said.
Sam liked it too.
My face fell. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. This…Thank you. Thank you so much. This is amazing. It just feels too amazing. It’s kind of scaring me a little. I feel the better things get, the worse it’s going to feel when it all goes away. Not the things. I don’t mean the things.”
Julianne held my cheeks with both hands. “You’re our daughter, and we bought our daughter a car. That’s all. It’s not wrong. It’s not to set you up for disappointment. It’s just a car.”
“It’s not just a car.” I looked back at the candy-red BMW sitting in the drive and then down at the remote in my hand. I really had a car. I could drive myself to school. To work. To college. To the grocery store. To the Laundromat, if I still had to go there. I didn’t, but I could drive there if I did. “You don’t know what this means to me. I don’t think I could explain it to you.”
“You don’t know what you mean to us,” Julianne said.
I pressed my lips together. “I’m really nervous about driving it.”
They laughed, and Julianne snapped dozens of pictures while Sam went over the basics, and then she waved as I very slowly backed out of the drive.
“You’re doing great,” Sam said as I pulled up on the signal lever and turned right.
“I’m going to wake up any minute,” I said, shaking my head. “This is just too wonderful to be real.”
Sam chuckled. “I’m glad you like it. It’s a relief. We were afraid you wouldn’t like it and be upset.”
I thought about what it must have been like for them to see disappointment in Alder’s eyes when they gave her a car on her sixteenth birthday. At the next stop sign, I made sure to look Sam directly in the eyes.
“You didn’t have to get me anything. The way you’ve been so accepting and understanding is more than I could ever ask for. But this is absolutely incredible. I love it. I can’t thank you enough.”
Sam’s smile stretched wide, and he settled back into his seat. “I can’t wait to tell Julianne you said that. She’ll be so happy.”
I pressed my foot on the gas, and the car that wasn’t just a car responded immediately, taking us to the restaurant.
When we arrived, it took nearly ten minutes for me to park, and then Sam instructed me how to turn off the ignition and lock up. He walked me across the parking lot and reached to open the door, but it swung open before he could.
The Mastersons stepped out, and Carolyn audibly gasped. Her platinum hair, thin and sparse from years of bleaching, was pulled loosely back into a low bun, her white, crisp collar popped up in the back and folded down in the front. When her mouth opened, her entire face shifted with it, as if the skin were so tight, it all had to move as a unit. She was nearly skeletal, but her husband, Harry, was round and breathed heavy, just from the walk from their table to the door. Unlike Carolyn, Harry couldn’t trouble himself to make any expression at all. Only his eyes moved to see whom she was reacting to.
Sam cupped my shoulders, and the air between us was immediately tense. “Hi, Harry. Carolyn.”
Carolyn collected herself and then arched one brow, looking me over like Sam had plucked me straight from the city dump and into the privilege of her presence.
“So she’s living with you now?” Carolyn asked, her voice breathy and full of disdain.
“Not now, Carolyn,” Sam said, encouraging me into the glass double doors.
Just as I took a step forward, Carolyn took a step to stand in front of the door.
“Do you have any idea what we’ve been through, Sam?” she seethed.
“I’m really not comfortable discussing this in front of Erin, Carolyn. Please,” he said, gesturing for her to step aside.
She didn’t. “I am devastated. Julianne is my best friend, and I treated Alder like a daughter. Do you know how sick and twisted this all is? I can’t even talk to Julianne about it because you have your new family now, and she doesn’t want negativity. Is she kidding me?”
My brow furrowed.
Harry stood there, stoic.
Sam glanced down to me and then back to her. “Julianne’s right. Our priority is Erin, and it’s not a good idea for you to be around her, considering…” He hugged me to his side. “I’m truly sorry, Carolyn. But I won’t discuss this now. We’ve all been through a lot, and now just isn’t the time.”
We went through a second set of doors and were greeted by the host. The walls were covered in bright paint and detailed murals, and the speakers played a Spanish tune just loud enough to be heard over the low murmuring of the patrons. Dozens of heads turned to see Sam and I walking down the aisle to the end booth.
Sam shifted nervously as the waiter took our drink orders and then leaned in to speak. “I’m so sorry about Carolyn. I didn’t know they would be here. They’ve been fairly private since the girls passed away.”