Chapter One
Clara
“What are the yellow lines for?”
“They’re dotted lines,” I answered.
“But they aren’t dots.” August sent me his famous look through the rearview mirror. The look that said I was wrong, and he was skeptical of everything I’d taught him in the five, nearly six, years of his life. He’d picked up that suspicion toward the end of his kindergarten year, and I’d been getting the look a lot this summer.
“No, they aren’t dots. But when you go fast enough, they sort of look like dots.”
“Why aren’t they called stripes?”
“I think some people might call them striped lines.”
“That’s what I’m calling them.” He dipped his chin in a single, committed nod. Decision made. “What do they mean?”
“It means that if you get behind someone going slower than you, and as long as there isn’t someone else coming in the opposite direction and the road is clear, you can pass the slower driver.”
August let my explanation sink in, and when he didn’t ask another follow-up question, I knew I’d satisfied his curiosity. For one topic.
One. Two. Three.
“Mom?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
“How much does the ocean weigh?”
Now there was a whopper. But my son’s endless questions never disappointed to entertain. I’d lost count of how many topics we’d covered on this trip alone. August was nothing if not inquisitive. I couldn’t wait to see what he’d do with all the facts he was storing in his head for later.
“With or without the whales?” I asked.
“With the whales.”
“With or without the yellow fish?”
“With them.”
“And the blue fish?”
“Yes. All the fish.”
“Even the starfish?”
“Mom,” he groaned. “How much?”
I laughed, glancing at the backseat, then turned back to the road. “The ocean, with the whales and the fish and the starfish, weighs more than the moon and less than Jupiter.”
His little forehead furrowed as he rolled that one around. “That’s a lot.”
“It sure is.” My cheeks pinched from smiling, but that was the case with August. When he was younger, I’d told him he had magical powers. That if he smiled, I smiled. Every time. That was his magic, and he used it often.
I adjusted my grip on the steering wheel as the tires whirred over the pavement. The Cadillac floated down the road more than it rolled. In a way, it was like we were flying, skimming just above the asphalt as we soared toward California.
August stared out his window, his legs kicking. He was already restless to get out of the car even though we’d just started today’s journey, navigating the roads of Phoenix as we headed toward the interstate.
We were halfway through our two-day journey from our home in Welcome, Arizona, to Elyria, California.
In total, the trip was only eight hours, but I’d split it up, not wanting to torture my son with an entire day strapped in a car seat. Last night, we’d stopped in Phoenix and had a nice evening at the hotel. August had spent the hours after dinner doing enough cannon balls into the pool to sink a pirate ship. Then he’d passed out beside me in bed while I’d read a book for a few hours of distraction.
This morning, after a continental breakfast of pastries and juice, we’d loaded up the Cadillac and hit the road.
“Mom?”
“August?”
“Do you like this car?”
“I love this car,” I answered without hesitation. Even though I hadn’t spent enough hours behind the wheel to consider it mine, I loved this car. For reasons that would be lost on my son.
“But there’s no movie player,” he argued. It was the third time he’d reminded me that the Cadillac didn’t have a video console like my Volkswagen Atlas.
“Remember what I told you. This car is a classic.”
He huffed and sank deeper into his car seat, totally unimpressed. “How much longer?”
“We’ve got a while.” I stretched a hand to the backseat, palm up.
He might not be having the time of his life in the car, but he was still my best pal. With a crack, he slapped his hand to mine for a high-five.
“Love you, Gus.”
“Love you too.”
I returned my hand to the wheel and relaxed into the buttery leather seat.
Yes, I loved this car, even if it wasn’t mine to keep. The 1964 Cadillac DeVille had once been a heap of rust and dented metal. The car had rested on flat tires in a junkyard in Temecula, California, home to bugs. Probably a mouse. And two runaway teens.
The on-ramp for the interstate approached and I took it, my heart galloping as I pressed the accelerator.
Today was the day. Today I was returning this Cadillac to one of those runaway teens. Today, after more than a decade away, I was going to see Karson.
My stomach twisted. If not for my firm grip on the wheel, my hands would shake. Twelve, almost thirteen years ago, I’d left California. I’d left the junkyard that six of us had called home for a time.
My twin sister—Aria—and me.
Londyn, Gemma and Katherine.
And Karson.
He’d been our protector. The one to make us laugh. The shoulder to cry on. He’d made a bad situation bearable. An adventure. We’d survived the junkyard because of Karson.
And the Cadillac was his, a gift from Londyn. I was simply the delivery girl.
In another lifetime, Londyn and Karson had made this Cadillac their home, back in the days when it didn’t have glossy, cherry-red paint or a working engine. But Londyn had hauled the Cadillac out of the junkyard and had it completely restored. She’d kept it herself for a time, then set out to give it to Karson.
Her trip from Boston to California had only made it to West Virginia. From there, Gemma had taken the Cadillac to Montana. Katherine had been the third behind the wheel, driving it to Aria in Oregon. Then my sister had brought it to me in Arizona.
Ready or not, it was time to finish what Londyn had started. I’d put off this trip long enough. But it was time to make the handoff, to take the last leg of the journey.
The final trip.
It wasn’t the hours on the highway or the destination that had kept my heart racing since we’d left home yesterday. It was the man waiting, unsuspecting, at the end of the road.
Had Karson found whatever it was he’d been searching for? Had he built a good life? Was he happy? Did he remember our moments together in vivid clarity like I did? Did he replay them during the long nights when sleep was lost?
Will he recognize me?
“Mom?”
I shook off the anxiety. “Yeah?”
“How much longer till we get there? Exactly?”
“About four and a half hours.”
He groaned and flopped his back. “That’s gonna take forever.”
“You could take a nap. That will make the trip go by faster.”
August sat up straight and sent me a look of pure poison through the mirror. “It’s morning.”
I pulled in my lips to hide my smile. “How about some music?”