I opened it carefully. The second document was the title. Already transferred. Already filed. Already done. My name was on it. Had been on it since before Grandpa died. The third thing in the envelope was a voice recorder, the small kind, the size of a thumb. There was a sticky note attached in Grandpa’s handwriting. “Press play.” The third thing in the envelope was a voice recorder. I looked at the officer. He nodded. I pressed play. Grandpa’s voice came out of that little device, and I was not prepared for it. It was exactly his voice, unhurried, the same tone he used when he was
explaining something he’d thought through carefully. He said he was recording this on a Sunday afternoon in the fall, sitting in the driveway of his house. He said he had a feeling he should put some things on record. I was not prepared for it. He said Rebecca had visited him twice
the previous year. Both times she had told him, in her careful way, that it would mean a great deal to Lisa if the Buick stayed in the family properly. That I was young. That an older girl would take better care of it.
Surely Grandpa could see the sense in that.
He said he had listened politely both times.
Grandpa could see the sense in that.
He claimed he had also called his attorney later, once the following morning and once the same afternoon.
He said he wanted it on record that no one had pressured him and that he had made his decision about that car with a completely clear mind, because he’d had it clear for years.
And then, at the end, he said this.
“Jayde, sweetheart, if this recording found its way to you, then I hope you’re sitting in the driver’s seat. The Buick is yours. It always was. I know you’ll take care of it. More importantly, I know it’ll take care of you.”
“The Buick is yours.”
I had to stop the recording for a moment.
The impound lot was very quiet.
Rebecca, standing ten feet away, had gone the color of old concrete.
My father had driven himself to the lot. He was standing at a slight distance from Rebecca.
He was very still and very quiet in the way of a man who has just finished understanding something he should have understood two years ago.
Rebecca had gone the color of old concrete.
I pressed play again and listened to the rest.
The officers were thorough.
By the time they finished reviewing everything, the conclusion was straightforward. The car had belonged to me since the day my grandfather put the keys in my hand.
It had never legally been Rebecca’s to take, or Lisa’s to drive.
The car had belonged to me.
***
The Buick was returned to me that morning.
Rebecca tried to say something on the way out of the lot.
I don’t remember what it was. I wasn’t listening.
I was running my hand along the roof of the car.
The paint was a little dustier than my grandfather would have allowed, and the side door was scratched in a way that was going to need attention.
Rebecca tried to say something.
But it was still red. Still the same red it had been for three decades.
I got in and closed the door.
I sat in the driver’s seat for the first time since Grandpa died.
For a moment, I didn’t start the car.
I just sat there, learning how to be near him again.
It was still red.
The interior looked tired.
A receipt sat in the cupholder.
The floor needed vacuuming.
It had taken Lisa one week to undo habits my grandfather had spent three decades building.
But the smell was still there.
Old leather, dashboard cleaner, something underneath all of it that was just him, or the memory of him, which at that moment felt like the same thing.
The smell was still there.
***
I put both hands on the steering wheel and sat there for a while.
I almost put the envelope in my bag without looking at the rest of it.
Then I noticed something I’d missed: a smaller envelope tucked behind the title paperwork, folded in half, with nothing on the outside except my name again.
I opened it and recognized Grandpa’s handwriting right away.
I noticed something I’d missed.
The same way he used to write my name on birthday cards.
Just two lines:
“You were never hard to love.
Some people just made loving you look inconvenient.”
I sat in that car for a long time after that.
I don’t know exactly how long. Long enough that one of the officers came to check on me, and I told him I was fine. He nodded and left me alone, which was what I needed.
I told him I was fine.
My father knocked on the window, eventually.
I rolled it down and looked at him.
He didn’t have a speech ready. He didn’t have much of anything ready. He stood there in the thin morning light, looking like a man who had just finished adding something up and didn’t like the total.
“I should have stopped her, Jayde.”
“Yes, Dad. You should have.”
I rolled the window back up.
“I should have stopped her, Jayde.”
I wasn’t ready for more than that. Maybe someday I will be. But not that morning, in an impound lot, with my grandfather’s voice still sitting in the air around me from a recorder the size of a thumb.
***
That was years ago now.
I still drive the Buick.
I had the scratches on the door repainted. I fixed the bumper dent myself, the way my grandfather taught me, with a lot of patience and a YouTube video, and two afternoons in the driveway.
I wash it every other Saturday. I use the same cleaner on the dashboard.
I still drive the Buick.
People sometimes ask why I still drive an old car.
The truth is, it was never just a car.
It was the last thing my grandfather gave me.
And he chose it carefully.
Grandpa told me to take care of it.
And he told me it would take care of me.
It was never just a car.
He’d already made sure of the second part before I even had a chance to manage the first.
That’s the thing about my grandfather.
He didn’t make promises he hadn’t already arranged to keep.
He was right on both counts, which should not have surprised me.
He usually was.
He was right.
