The grandkids visited every summer after that, and the Mustang became their chariot, their time machine, their proof that their Poppy was the coolest grandfather in the known universe. Harold taught them everything: how to wash it, how to wax it, how to listen to the engine and hear what it needed. He told them about Eleanor, about the dealership, about the coffee can, about the Poconos and the compass. He told them about the firehouse, about Cedar Grove, about the rule. We all go home. The grandson, at sixteen, wrote a school essay about his grandfather, and it won a county prize, and the essay ended with the words: My Poppy says courage is showing up. I want to show up like him. Harold kept a copy in the glove box, next to the registration and the love letters and the photograph. The glove box was getting crowded. Harold didn't mind. A crowded glove box, he told Marty, is a full life.
Marty's health declined in the later years, as old firefighters' health does, the years of smoke and stress collecting their due. Harold drove him to his appointments in the Mustang, because Marty said the car made him feel better than the medicine, and who was Harold to argue. They talked on those drives the way old friends talk when they know the road is getting shorter, about the firehouse, about the ones they'd lost, about Eleanor and Marty's wife, gone ten years now. You know what I think, Hal, Marty said one afternoon, watching the lake go by. I think we did all right. I think we showed up. Harold nodded, his eyes on the road. We showed up, Marty. That's the whole thing. Marty died in the spring, peacefully, in his sleep, like Pete. Harold was a pallbearer, again. He drove the Mustang at the head of the procession, again. At the repast, Marty's son, a firefighter himself, gave Harold his father's helmet, and said, He wanted you to have it. He said you were the best officer he ever served under. Harold held the helmet, and he thought about fifty years, about the engine, about the rule, about the man who had been beside him for all of it. He hung the helmet in his garage, next to the little girl's drawing, and every Saturday morning, before the diner, he touched it, briefly, a salute.
The car club elected Harold president, which he accepted with bad grace and secret pleasure. He ran the meetings the way he had run the firehouse: efficiently, fairly, with no tolerance for nonsense and infinite patience for enthusiasm. Membership doubled. They organized charity cruises, toy drives, a scholarship for a local kid who wanted to study automotive restoration. Linda, with the Chevelle, became vice president, and she and Harold developed a partnership of teasing and mutual respect that delighted everyone. You're doing a good job, Hal, she'd say. Don't let it go to your head. My head is fine, he'd say. It's my knees I'm worried about. And the table would laugh, because Harold at eighty-two had become, improbably, a comedian, or at least the straight man in a comedy duo he hadn't auditioned for.
Diane Kessler's roses won a prize at the county garden show, and she brought Harold a cutting, in a pot, with instructions written in her precise hand. He planted it next to the Peace rose. The two bushes grew together, intertwined, red and pink, and Harold thought it was a good metaphor, though he couldn't have said for what. Diane volunteered at the library three days a week. She joined the garden club. She never ran for the board again, but she attended meetings, sitting quietly in the back, the way Harold once had. Once, after a meeting, she approached him in the parking lot, and she said, Mr. Brennan, I never properly thanked you. For the note. For the forgiveness. I don't know that I deserved it. Harold looked at her, this woman who had tried to tow his wife's car, who had become, through the strange alchemy of grace, something like a friend. Mrs. Kessler, he said, Eleanor used to say that holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. I never had much use for poison. Diane laughed, a real laugh, the first Harold had ever heard from her. Your Eleanor sounds like she was quite a woman. She was, Harold said. She was the whole world.
On the fifth anniversary of the tow truck morning, the local paper ran a retrospective: Where Are They Now? Harold was photographed on his porch with the Mustang, in his cardigan, holding his coffee. The article recounted the whole story, the letter, the sticker, the officers, the hats. It quoted Sergeant Mendez, retired now, who said, That morning reminded every officer in this county why we do the job. It quoted Tyler, the former compliance officer, now the manager of the hardware store, who said, I learned more from that driveway than from four years of college. It quoted Diane Kessler, who said, I learned that leadership without compassion is just bullying with better stationery. Harold read the article twice and put it in the drawer with the rubber bands and the spare keys, next to the orange sticker and Margaret Holloway's last card and Diane's letter. The drawer was getting crowded. Harold didn't mind. A crowded drawer, like a crowded glove box, is a full life.