When we finally pulled into the driveway, I was almost too weak to climb out. That was when Owen’s grandmother saw me from the porch.
She lived in the downstairs suite of the house she still technically owned. Owen and I paid part of the bills, but it was her house, her rules. She came down the steps fast and looked from my face to the baby carrier to the empty driveway.
“Where’s Owen?”
I tried to smile. “It’s fine.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Try again.”
And that was it. I broke. I told her everything right there in the driveway: Owen refusing to let the baby in the car, telling me to call a cab, driving off, the nurse, the taxi. She didn’t interrupt once. When I finished, she lifted the diaper bag off my shoulder and said, “Don’t apologize for his failure.”
Then she looked toward the street with a calm expression that frightened me more than anger would have.
“I know what to do,” she said.
She got me inside, brought me water, made me sit, and told me to feed the baby. I expected her to call Owen and scream. She didn’t. She made one phone call from the kitchen, voice low. Then another. Then she came back in as though nothing had happened.
Around six I heard his car pull into the driveway. He walked in smiling, twirling his keys.
“There you are,” he said. “See? You managed. Let me hold my girl.”
I just stared at him. Then his grandmother stepped out of the dining room holding a cardboard box.
Owen stopped smiling. “What’s that?”
“A lesson,” she said.
He gave a short laugh. “About what?”
She set the box on the coffee table. “You’ll find out in three, two, one.” Then she opened it.
Inside were the title paperwork for his car, the financing agreement, and a bill of sale.
Owen went pale. “Oh no. Grandma, don’t.”
She ignored him and looked at me. I looked at the papers, then at him. “What is this?”
His grandmother folded her hands. “This is the part where your husband learns that the car he worships does not legally belong to him.”
“It was going to be transferred,” Owen snapped.
“He couldn’t qualify for the financing on his own,” she told me. “He also didn’t have enough to cover the registration, insurance, and taxes. I co-signed, I covered the shortfall, and I kept the title in my name until he proved he could act like a grown man.”
I turned to Owen. “So after all that, it wasn’t even yours?”
“That’s not the point.”
“It is now,” she said.
She reached into the box and pulled out another set of keys, old and scratched. She nodded toward the window. “Look outside.”
Parked behind Owen’s car was an old minivan. Faded blue. A dent in the side. Cloth seats. One sliding door that looked like it needed a hard shove.
Owen frowned. “Why is Grandpa’s van here?”
“Because your grandfather’s van has been sitting in storage for three years, and today it became useful again.”
He looked from the van to the box. “What did you do?”
“I called Martin.”
His face tightened. “The dealership guy?”
“The same one who has wanted that car since the day you brought it home. He came by this afternoon, looked it over, signed the paperwork, and arranged pickup. That was the truck you heard outside five minutes ago.”
Owen moved to the window. His car was still there, but now I noticed a flatbed easing into the street. He spun around. “You sold my car while I was in the house?”
