Me at 15's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

We moved to the north end of Oshawa, to a house with a garage, and I started at McLaughlin Collegiate for my last two years. JP came with me. She lived close enough that we could walk together most mornings. The brick bungalow sat on a corner lot with a single-car garage attached to the side. Dad backed the Model A into it the day we moved in, the red paint still dull and spotted with rust. He spent every evening after work out there with the garage door open, hunched over the engine or running a rag along the fenders. I could hear him from my window, the clink of tools against metal, the creak of the hood lifting. He hummed sometimes. I hadn't heard him hum in years. I wanted to go out there and ask him about it, to stand next to him and watch what he was doing, but every time I got as far as the driveway he was so focused he didn't look up. I went back inside. At McLaughlin I met LB and MR in my English class. LB sat in front of me and turned around on the first day to ask if I had an extra pen. MR sat by the window and drew in the margins of her notebook during lectures. When the teacher assigned group work, the three of us ended up together. JP stayed in her own classes but we still ate lunch outside when the weather held. LB talked fast and loud, always gesturing with her hands. MR was quieter, but when she spoke people listened. They both wrote too. We started trading pages during study hall, reading each other's work in the library. They finished what I gave them. They asked questions. They wanted to know what happened next. One afternoon I came home and Dad was standing in the driveway, the garage door open behind him. The Model A's hood was up and the engine was finally clean, the parts laid out on a tarp. He asked if I wanted to hand him tools while he worked. I said yes. He didn't talk much, just told me what he needed and where to find it. I passed him wrenches and rags and held the flashlight while he checked the carburetor. When the sun started to set he said that was enough for today. He didn't say thank you or good job, but he didn't walk away either. He closed the hood and wiped his hands and we stood there together for a minute, looking at the car. I realized I didn't need him to explain why it mattered to him. I just needed to be part of it. That was enough. I went inside and wrote about a girl whose father taught her how to fix things without saying much, and for the first time the father in my story felt real.