The older man sighed and dropped his head so that he was looking at the toes of his boots. “I had a kid with a woman when I was very young, just out of high school and torn between joining the army and trying to figure out my own way in the world. She was supposed to be a one-night stand, a way to sow some oats before I committed to one path or the other. She was a redhead, I always had a weakness for long legs and red hair. Things didn’t work out the way I thought they would. She got knocked up, asked me for money for an abortion, and disappeared as soon as I handed the cash over. Didn’t know her, didn’t really want to, but that was a mistake.”
He looked up to see if I was still following him. I was … and I didn’t like where any of this was going. “You trying to tell me that I’m that baby?” I knew my mom was shady as hell and that sounded exactly like something she would do.
He let out a bitter-sounding chuckle and lifted an eyebrow at me. “I know I look young, kid, but not that young. I’m trying to tell you that baby was your mother.” He sighed and rocked back on his heels. “I didn’t know the woman I hooked up with took the money but kept the baby. I was clueless to the fact that I even had a child until my little one showed up on my doorstep at sixteen, hungry, homeless, and pissed off at the world. Her mother hadn’t done right by her and neither had I. She was already deep into addiction, something I think she turned to in order to cope with the lifestyle her mother forced on her.” He cringed. “And I think she was self-medicating. Been around a lot of women in my day and I know when one is off. My baby girl … there was something not right with her.”
I held up a hand and closed my eyes briefly so I could pull my thoughts together. “You’re telling me that you’re my grandfather?” He didn’t look a day over forty-five, even with the silver in his hair. I was having a hard time processing that, but there was no denying that the reason I could swear I had seen him somewhere before was because we had the same face and the exact same eyes. It was like looking into the future. He was what was waiting for me as I began to age.
He nodded and started to pace in front of me. “I took your mother in, put her in a program, got her some professional help, and prayed I could undo all the damage that was done at the hands of her mother.” He gave me a look full of remorse and failure. “It didn’t work. She’d get clean and go right back to using. She’d go to her sessions with the doc and then disappear for two or three days. She was erratic, violent, and unpredictable on her best days. She was bringing dangerous people around and refused to see that the drugs weren’t helping; nothing really seemed to make a dent. I was married by the time she showed up, had an okay life and not much to complain about. My wife left because of the chaos your mother caused and I didn’t care. She was my child, my daughter, it was my job to set her straight.”
I let out a snort and gritted my back teeth. “She was never straight. When I was a baby, she would forget about me when she was high and when she wasn’t she was annoyed I was there. When I was older, she would take me with her to score and leave me with whoever happened to be around. She still hung around dangerous people, so I was lucky that she gave me up when she did because who knows what kind of horrible shit I would have had to face when she was blitzed out. I needed someone to save me from her.”
He made a strangled sound in his throat and lifted a hand so that he could drag it roughly over his face. “I know she never got better. After my wife left, your mother and I had it out. I told her it was rehab and living clean or she was out.” He tossed his head back so that he was looking up at the ceiling. “I woke up the next day and she was gone. She took my ’52 Hudson with her.” His face contorted at the memory, and when he looked back at me it was tortured. “She pawned the car for a couple of thousand dollars and vanished. I never heard from her again.”
I laughed but there was no humor in it and I felt like the center of my chest was going to cave in on itself. “Well, she did the same thing to me but I was four, so I assure you it sucked way worse for me than it did for you.”
He turned to face me with a somber expression. His body was stiff and I could tell he was trying to keep his emotions in check. “I tried to find her. I hired private investigators, pulled in favors from clients, asked some guys I knew from back in the day who had connections that weren’t exactly legal. No one could find her, maybe because she was living on the streets, hanging with people that didn’t want to be found. I got close once when she got locked up on a solicitation charge in New Orleans.” He looked down at the ground and then back up to me. “Her pimp bailed her out before I could get down there and she disappeared again. She must have changed her name after that; maybe she stole someone’s identity because she was a ghost. I looked for her for years and years, waiting for the day I was going to get a phone call telling me they found her body in a ditch somewhere.” His entire frame shuddered and I saw his eyes go shiny with unshed tears. “That call came in the middle of September. She overdosed in a women’s shelter in Dallas. She was sick, kid, really sick, and there was no way to heal her.”
Fuck me but that hurt. I put a hand to the ache that was kicking hard at my ribs and closed my eyes. I always thought she was terrible not just to me, but an actual terrible person. I knew she didn’t end up the way that she did without some help and now knowing she might not have had any control over her sickness made me feel guilty for downright hating her all these years. There wasn’t a shot in hell that she was ever going to be a good mom and do right by me, so the kindest thing she could do was let me go. I’d never really had her, but knowing she was gone in such an ugly, lonely way burned bright and fierce in my blood.
“The only reason I found out about her passing was because she kept a box of personal belongings on her. Inside they found one of my business cards, so they called and asked me to ID her. I flew to Dallas so I could put my baby in the ground, and when I got back to California I went through the stuff she kept close even through all her running and using.” He took a couple of steps closer to me so that we were eye to eye. Both of us fighting back hot emotion and struggling with the loss of a woman that had torn both of our lives apart. “In the box was a birth certificate. My baby had a baby and I didn’t even know about it.” A tight smile pulled at his mouth and his chest expanded as he blew out a long breath. “She named you after my favorite car but I have no clue where ‘Wheeler’ came from. Maybe it was your dad’s real last name, or maybe she made it up. I have no clue but it explains why I never knew you were out there. I hired the same guys I hired to find her to find you, only this time it took them half a day. Your garage is all over the Internet. People that know cars know your name. I saw your picture and nearly passed out. You looked just like me when I was in my twenties and you had my knack for fixing things most people have forgotten about. I remarried and she’s a good woman. Stood by my side while I spent thousands upon thousands of dollars trying to find someone that didn’t want to be found. She held me when I cried over my daughter’s grave and she gave me her blessing not only when I told her I was going to meet my grandson but when I told her I was giving him that same car your mother took off in all those years ago. She’s a good woman with a failing heart. She doesn’t have much time left, so trying to figure out a way to finesse this, to ease my way into your life, went out the window. She wants to meet you before it’s too late and I promised her I would make that happen.”