Fight For Her

Chapter Two

The phone rings somewhere in the distance, and my dad comes up the stairs behind me a moment later. "You okay, sweetheart?" my dad says.

It's been three years since my brother passed, and I've learned to mask the pain. It's what one has to do in order to move on. I'm only seventeen; I can't live the rest of my life hanging on to the sadness Max's death instilled in my life.

"Yeah, I'm all right."

Dad stares at me for a moment or two longer, judging whether or not to believe me. I learned how to fake happiness, and then Jack came to remind me I didn't have to by keeping my mind off of the troubles in my life. There were still ways to grasp happiness, and he was one of them when we first met.

"Archie just called about a car he's too busy to fix. Do you want to come with me, and we can have a look?" He's already changed into jeans and a T-shirt.

It's great not having to worry about money because your family owns a successful business, but the kind of dedication it takes to run a big company leads to one's parents rarely being around. I was in middle school when the business took off and my dad was constantly out at meetings and flying states away for work purposes, and I rarely saw him. When I did, I only ever saw the business side of him. I didn't get to see the fun, ripped T-shirt wearing, dad-jean sporting, goofy parent that I had grown up with.

He wore a suit every day and never wore it with a smile. But after my brother passed away during my freshman year of high school, my dad realized how little he was actually around and started staying home more and more, and morphed back into the dad I remembered as a little kid.

"Scarlet?" my dad asks.

"I'd love to come," I say. I've been going to the shop with my dad since I could stand on my own two feet. It's like a second home to me, and Archie like an uncle.

Despite all of the choices of cars to drive to the shop, my dad chooses his old pickup, which I suppose keeps him tied to his country roots. It looks odd in our magnificent driveway, the rusting red paint job chipping away, but neither of us care as we drive down the road to the shop. Dad keeps the windows down, letting the warm fall air whip my hair around, so that he can rest his arm out the window.

"Look there, Scar," Dad says, pointing to a house I have seen thousands of times. "That's the house—"

"That you grew up in. You've only told me that every single time we drive to the shop."

"It's important. I grew up there and opened a shop close enough to walk to, stayed home to save up while I worked on my business, got enough money to eventually move out, met your mom, and was able to slowly start expanding while raising two kids."

My parents have always taught me the importance of a good work ethic.

My dad taught me how to change a tire when I was ten. After getting home from the shop, I boasted to Max that I knew how to do something he didn't, only to learn my dad had taught him when he was eight and he knew ten times the number of auto repairs I did.

After that, I would spend every moment I could at the shop watching the three of them work—Archie, my dad, and Max. Once the shop expanded, I rarely worked with the three of them, so I cherished that time while I had it. Eventually, I forced my way in and then they had to teach me what they were doing. I wouldn't let them get anything done if they didn't.

Since then, my dad has only challenged me further. He let me work at the shop when I was thirteen years old, first with Max and Archie as their helper until I was promoted to a trustworthy mechanic who didn't need help from her big brother.

Archie grins when he sees my dad, a handshake ensues, and then he pulls me in for a side-hug.

"There's my favorite little worker," he says with a thick, Texan accent, ruffling my hair just like my dad had earlier. "This car is causing me a headache. It's constantly slipping as the owner switches gears."

"You check the transmission fluid? Sounds like it may be low," I say.

"That was my first thought too. I checked, it's fine. I can't seem to figure out what it may be, and I haven't got time to do the deep dive, got three other cars racked up and owners that'll be here any minute."

My dad glances at me and wraps his arm around my shoulders. "All right, Scar, what's the solution?"

Together, he and I lift the hood and start digging around to see if maybe there's something Archie missed. It creaks as I open it, a comforting squeak that bellows throughout the shop as I prop it up. Dad goes to grab us some gloves, and the dusty scent of them fills my senses as he tosses me my own beaten-up pair.

I know my dad likes coming to the shop to work on cars like he used to; the business side of owning auto shops means he deals with numbers and corporate officials. He doesn't get a whiff of the rubber scent of the garage, to worry about Mom yelling at him for getting grease and oil on his clothes, or hear the satisfying roar of an engine he fixed. No, he just sees our customers as dollar signs on a spreadsheet and sinks back into the stiff, business style.

He's already got an oil stain on his ratty T-shirt, and his forehead is crinkled as he tugs at a wrench to get into the problem. My own gray jumpsuit gains a matching stain the more we work on the transmission, and eventually my forehead is dusted with sweat and I have hair falling out of my loose ponytail.

"You figure it out?" Dad asks.

I know why he asked. He's diagnosed the problem, and he's challenging me to find it as quickly as he has.

"Not quite yet."

"Look here," he says, stepping closer to me as he points down at the spark plug. "Notice anything odd?"

"It looks normal to me? The terminal nut is perfectly intact."

"Look again."

He's right. Though the terminal is in fine condition, the area around it, known as the corrugations, is corroded.

"How did I not notice before . . ." I sigh.

"Don't worry, Scarlet, you would have gotten there. It's important to check even what you least expect, remember that."

"So simple I didn't even think to look either," Archie says. "Thanks, boss, easy fix."

Dad removes his gloves and tosses them on the table in the corner of the shop, dusting his hands off on his jeans.

"Keep up the good work here, Archie. Let me know if you have any other problems."

We head back home just as the sun begins to set and Dad keeps the windows down in the truck. The sun sets beyond the fields, setting a golden shadow over the town. We pass Dad's childhood home just as the last of the sunlight disappears, but I don't need the sun to know what every blade of grass looks like or to see the bump in the road as we turn into our neighborhood. I know this town too well; it's small enough for me to memorize everything about it. Small enough for memories to be tied to every street, every building, every person.

Dad pulls into our driveway, winding around the fountain in the middle, and we head back inside where Mom has made dinner. The savory scent of oven-roasted chicken drifts through the hall as we enter the house. After dinner, I make my way to my room to finish my homework and get ready for bed, noting a text from Jack reminding me to prepare for tomorrow's pep rally. A perfectly normal day.