Author: Gail G. Taylor

September 5, 2026 STORIES 9 min

The church parking lot was still half full when Arthur parked his sedan right behind the catering vans, blocking the exit. He did not come inside for the reception or shake hands with anyone who had sat through the service for my mother. He stayed out by his car with his hands in his pockets, staring at the black canvas top of the 1968 Chevrolet convertible parked near the side doors. That car was the last thing my mother cared about before she died at seventy-one. Five years earlier, when my savings from the bookstore finally allowed me to do something foolish and wonderful, I bought it for her. It was forest green with cream interior, the exact model her father drove when she was ten. We spent two autumns finding the correct dashboard knobs at swap meets in Ohio, her sitting on an overturned bucket with a rag, polishing chrome while I argued with men over carburetor prices. When she got sick in the spring, she signed the title over to me so there would be no probate trouble, but she kept the keys on her bureau because she liked the sound they made when she dusted them. Arthur was my mother’s first cousin on her father’s side, a man who had not visited her once in the eighteen months she spent going in and out of chemo clinics. Yet here he was, walking across the wet gravel toward me while I was trying to thank the organist. “Don’t bother with the thank-yous, Clara,” Arthur said, not even lowering his voice for the people standing around the coffee urn. “You need to ride with me back to the house. I brought the flatbed around to the side entrance so we can load the Chevy before dark.” I looked at him, feeling the cold air off the grass hit the back of my neck. “The car stays in the garage, Arthur. We aren’t moving anything today.” “Your mother promised that car to me at the family reunion back in ninety-four,” he said, speaking loud enough for my uncle Tom to turn around with a paper cup in his hand. “Everyone heard her. She said when she was done with it, it stayed in the bloodline, not sold off to some stranger or kept parked in your driveway like lawn furniture.” “She didn’t promise it to you in ninety-four, and she certainly didn’t promise it to you while she was on oxygen,” I said. My voice was lower than his, tight in my throat. “And it isn’t going to a stranger. It’s staying right where it is.” Arthur gave a short, dry laugh that sounded like gravel hitting a shovel. “We’ll see about that. I’ve got the trailer fee paid and the winch is hooked up. You can find the keys on her dresser or I can crawl through the side window of the garage myself.” Before I could answer, Tom walked over, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Arthur, what in the world are you shouting about? Clara’s mother hasn’t even been in the ground three hours.” “She promised me the car, Tom, and you know it,” Arthur said, pointing a thumb at me. “She’s just being difficult because she thinks she owns the world.” I turned away from both of them and walked out the side doors into the cold damp air, my mind racing through the filing cabinet in my kitchen where the blue registration slip sat under a rubber band.

PART 1 The church parking lot was still half full when Arthur parked his sedan right behind the...