LITMIR.BIZ

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breathe a sigh of relief and chalk up whatever had happened last night to some weird, unfortunate experience that she hoped never to go through again.

      She popped three Advil for the headache that wouldn’t go away and downed them with a long gulp of coffee. She still couldn’t shake the unsettling, off-kilter feeling. It was a feeling that something was … wrong. Amiss. Out of place. Not right. She looked around the kitchen. The milk was on the counter, cereal bowls left in the sink, the toaster was out. But it wasn’t the mess leftover from breakfast or the lounge cushion still floating in the pool that was bothering her. Like in her bedroom, everything looked exactly as she had left it before she’d headed to Charity’s yesterday. The hand-painted canisters she’d gotten on vacation in New Orleans were displayed neatly next to her collection of olive oils and a decorative tin of amaretto cookies. Maggie’s artwork covered the fridge: circles made with glued-on buttons, crayoned stick figures, Jackson Pollock-esque finger paintings. Jarrod’s shoes and jacket were sitting on a seat, waiting for someone to take them upstairs and put them away. Maggie’s toys were spread out all over the family room. Like the backyard, everything looked the same, but it was all completely different. It made her think of Maggie’s favorite story, The Cat in the Hat. It felt like, while she was away yesterday at Charity’s, strangers had come in, partied on her furniture and done crazy stuff with her house, then gone and cleaned up and put everything back in its proper place moments before she’d stepped through the door. Everything looked the same … but it wasn’t.

      Faith put the milk away and the dishes in the dishwasher. The ‘change’ she was sensing was obviously imperceptible to others, instigated by her own Irish Catholic guilt. Hopefully, time would temper the guilt and the unsettling feeling would settle down and go away. After all, the unsuspecting mother in the Dr Seuss tale had no idea what calamities befell her house while she was away and she would never have to know since everything had been put back in its proper place. It was the children who faced the moral dilemma of whether or not to tell her. She looked around her kitchen. Would it really matter what had happened last night as long as everything was put back to the way it was supposed to be?

      Then she thought of the Explorer. She braced her hands on the island’s sink and stared at the door that led out to her garage. Not everything looked the same as it had when she’d left yesterday …

      After she’d finished cleaning the kitchen, she headed back upstairs to the laundry room. Her clothes from last night were buried in the hamper where she’d stuffed them, including her blue jeans. Her shirt smelled of wine and beer and smoke and partying and she sprayed it with Febreeze and a glob of Shout for good measure. Then she squirted a mound of the spot cleaner on the dark stain on her jeans and shoved everything in the washing machine, watching as it filled. A fresh start. A do-over.

      Then she headed back downstairs.

      The house had two garages: a double on one side where her car was, off the kitchen, and a single on the other side of the house, which was where Jarrod parked his Infinity. She hesitated for a moment with her hand on the door to the garage that housed her Explorer and held her breath. Part of her was hoping that last night was somehow a dream. A crazy nightmare that only felt real. Or maybe one that she was remembering as worse than what it actually was. She took a deep breath, turned the knob and flicked on the light. Her heart sank.

      The grille was dented and so was the bumper. There were two dents in the hood along with two deep scratches. It was all very, very real.

      She ran her hands over the hood, her fingertips following the scratches. On a shelf by the AC handler was a box of rags. She took one, wiped underneath the fender, held her breath again and looked at it.

      Nothing. There was nothing there. No blood.

      She exhaled. She stuck her head under the car and wiped again – hard. She looked again. Nothing. She scrubbed. The rag was dirty, but it wasn’t red. The rationalizations were back.

       Maybe it wasn’t blood that you thought you saw. Maybe it was grease.

      She got up and went over to the driver’s side window and looked in. She could see the scraggly streaks inside from where her own fingers had wiped away the fog when she first saw the girl. She traced the glass outside, where the girl had been standing, where she had placed her dirty palms. But like the dark substance under the fender, the handprints that she feared might still be there were gone.

      Faith took a deep breath, twisting the rag around and around in her fingers.

      Then she took the rag and wiped the glass clean, anyway.

       11

      ‘I can pull that out. No biggie. You don’t even need a paint job,’ said the mechanic with the name patch that read ‘Sal’.

      ‘Really?’ Faith exhaled a deep breath.

      ‘Yeah. It won’t be perfect, like if you got a new fender or nothing. Same with these dents on the hood. I’ll pop those out.’

      ‘That would be great. And the …?’ She pointed at the scratches next to the dents.

      ‘I can wet sand those,’ he answered with a smile. ‘I’ll try compound first. That might work.’

      ‘Well, that’s better than what I was thinking.’

      ‘Problem is your grille. You need a new one.’

      ‘Oh.’ Her face fell.

      ‘Oh man – you are far too pretty to have such a glum kisser. Listen, it must be your lucky day, ’cause I can probably get that part from a buddy without a hassle. Unless you want it new, because that might take a couple of days.’

      ‘No, no, it doesn’t have to be new, as long as it looks the same.’

      ‘It’ll look like you never hit …?’ he said, his voice rising. He was obviously waiting for her to fill in the blank.

      ‘A used part is fine,’ she replied.

      He nodded. ‘You’re paying cash, right? You don’t want to put it through insurance? That’s what you said on the phone.’

      ‘No. My rates will, you know … they’ll go up. I just want it fixed as soon as possible.’

      There was a brief silence. He rubbed his nose with a greasy finger, grinned and said, ‘Oh, I get it.’

      She shifted uncomfortably. ‘What?’

      ‘You don’t want the husband to know.’ He was looking at her wedding ring.

      ‘You got me.’

      ‘I’ve heard that before. But it’s a shame.’

      ‘What’s that?’

      ‘You’re married.’

      ‘Thanks, Sal. But you were nowhere to be found seven years ago.’

      He laughed. ‘I could fix your car for free no matter how many times you banged it up. And I’m very forgiving. Well, if you ever get rid of the husband, look me up. By the way, it’s Lou, not Sal,’ he said, pointing up at the sign above the garage bay that said: Lou’s Automotive Repair. Fast. Friendly. Dependable. ‘Sal’s my brother. He works here, too. And he lives with me. His shirt was the first one I found in the dryer this morning. Don’t mix us up if you come looking to take me up on that offer, Mrs …?’

      ‘Saunders.’

      ‘But if you’re coming in to complain, then ask for Sal,’ he added with a robust laugh.

      Faith looked around the garage. There was another car on a lift and a dozen smashed-up vehicles in the yard. ‘Can you do it today, you think, Lou? And the AC, too?’

      ‘Today? You crazy?’

      She bit her lip. She must have looked as desperate as she felt, because

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