Chapter 10 - October Without a Driver
October arrived cold and bright.
The engagement flowers had been gone for weeks.
The dining room no longer smelled faintly of lilies.
Vanessa’s east guest suite had become a regular guest room again, though Mrs. Carter refused to put red flowers in it.
“Too much history,” she said.
No one argued.
Sal’s new schedule changed the rhythm of the house more than I expected.
He worked Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
A younger driver named Theo Barnes covered the other days and anything after ten at night.
Theo was thirty-six, former city transit, married, two daughters, no interest in becoming anyone’s surrogate uncle.
Sal approved immediately.
“He has boundaries,” he told me.
“You say that like you invented them.”
“I discovered them late. That makes me evangelical.”
Luca drove himself more often too.
The first week, he backed the sedan into a stone planter.
Sal stood in the garage staring at the scrape.
“I taught you better.”
“You taught me in 2004.”
“Physics hasn’t changed.”
Luca paid for the repair without arguing.
That alone impressed everyone.
Theo also did something Sal had never learned to do until late in life: leave when his shift ended. One Tuesday, Mrs. Carter asked whether he could stay twenty extra minutes for an airport pickup. Theo checked the time, said he had promised his daughter he would attend her school concert, and handed the keys to the backup driver.
No one died. The guest reached the airport. The mansion remained standing.
Sal watched the whole thing with ridiculous satisfaction.
“See?” he told me. “A person can go home and the building survives.”
“Barely,” I said.
He pointed at me. “You need the lesson too.”
I did not argue.
The Wisconsin trip was scheduled for the first Monday in October.
For years, Sal had driven Luca to a fishing cabin near Eagle River that had belonged to Luca’s father.
This year, Sal arrived in his oatmeal-colored Buick wearing jeans and a navy jacket.
No driving coat.
No chauffeur’s cap.
I was carrying folded linens through the foyer when Luca came down with one duffel bag.
He looked at the Buick through the front window.
“You’re serious.”
Sal jingled his keys.
“About what?”
“That thing.”
“It’s a car.”
“It’s a threat to paint.”
Sal looked at me.
“You see what I’ve endured?”
“Thirty-four years,” I said.
“Thirty-five next spring if he behaves.”
Luca opened the front door.
Then stopped.
“You’re driving first?”
“Absolutely not.”
Sal tossed him the keys.
Luca caught them.
“I thought this was your car.”
“It is.”
“You don’t let anyone drive it.”
“I’m practicing trust.”
Luca stared at him.
“That’s manipulative.”
“Yes.”
They went outside arguing.
I watched from the door until the Buick disappeared.
Then I went back to work.
That was new for me.
Three months earlier, I would have wondered what they discussed for four hours, whether Luca apologized, whether Sal said something important, whether Vanessa came up.
Now I had six guest bathrooms and a broken vacuum attachment.
Their conversation did not belong to me simply because I cared.
The trip lasted five days.
On Wednesday, Vanessa came by the mansion for the first time since moving out.
Not to see Luca.
He was in Wisconsin.
She came to return a set of keys she had found in a jewelry box.
I met her at the front door.
She held them out.
“East suite and wine room.”
I took them.
“You could have mailed these.”
“I was nearby.”
She looked past me into the foyer.
The house had not changed much.
That seemed to surprise her.
“How is everyone?”
“Busy.”
“Sal?”
“In Wisconsin.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“He went?”
“As himself.”
Vanessa smiled faintly.
“That sounds like Sal.”
She looked down at her hands.
No ring.
“How’s Gabriel?” I asked.
“Better.”
The answer came with something like relief.
“He has a room at my new place now. Marisa hates the wallpaper.”
“What is it?”
“Dinosaurs.”
“Gabriel chose it?”
“Yes.”
“Then Marisa’s vote seems weak.”
Vanessa laughed.
“He sleeps there Thursdays and Fridays. We’re adding Wednesdays next month if he wants.”
“If he wants.”
She heard the emphasis.
“Yes.”
That mattered.
She shifted her purse.
“I started seeing someone.”
I blinked.
“A man?”
“A therapist.”
“Oh.”
Vanessa smiled.
“Your face.”
“I thought that was fast.”
“So did I.”
We both laughed.
Then she looked toward the staircase.
“I used to imagine Gabriel running down those stairs.”
I said nothing.
“It was such a complete picture in my head. His room. School nearby. Luca teaching him to fish. Sal giving him peppermints.”
She swallowed.
“I had planned everyone’s part.”
“Except whether they wanted it.”
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
“I hate how simple that sounds.”
“Simple isn’t the same as easy.”
Vanessa nodded.
She turned toward the door.
“Emma?”
“Yes?”
“Luca sent Gabriel a birthday card.”
I did not know that.
“What did it say?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t open it.”
That surprised me more than anything she had said.
Vanessa saw it.
“Progress?”
“Maybe.”
“Gabriel opened it himself.”
“What did he say?”
“That Luca wrote, ‘I hope you score a goal and eat too much cake.’”
I smiled.
“No promises. No big speech.”
“No.”
“Good.”
She nodded.
Then she left.
On Friday evening, the Buick returned.
Luca was driving.
The car was covered in road salt and dead bugs.
Sal got out of the passenger side with a paper bag full of cheese curds.
I was on the front steps bringing in a package.
“How was Wisconsin?”
Sal held up the bag.
“Overpriced.”
Luca opened the trunk.
“Your standards are impossible.”
“My standards kept your father alive on black ice.”
“That story gets bigger every year.”
“Because you get less grateful.”
They carried their own bags inside.
No one asked me to.
At the door, Sal stopped beside me.
“He drove half.”
“How did that go?”
“Terrifying.”
Luca called from the foyer.
“I can hear you.”
Sal lowered his voice dramatically.
“Still terrifying.”
Then he went in.
I looked at the Buick.
For the first time in weeks, I realized Sal’s chauffeur’s cap was nowhere in sight.
Not lost.
May you like
Not discarded.
Just no longer required for every mile they traveled together.
