The Chip in the Hood

Everyone had an opinion about the car. Sell it, said my aunt, who has never been sentimental about anything in her life. Keep it and don't drive it, said the man from his old car club, because every mile makes it worth less. Grandpa would have said nothing at the time, and then said something three days later, at dinner, as if the conversation had never stopped.

He bought the Alfa in 1974, the year my mother was born, and in forty-eight years he put maybe six thousand miles on it. It lived under a gray cover in a rented garage in Waltham. He was saving it. I never asked what for, and now I can't.

Eight months after his death I drove out there with the key. When I pulled the cover off, the dust came off with it and hung in the light for a long time before it settled. Underneath, the paint was perfect. That is the thing nobody warns you about: a car that has never been used stays young, and at the end he was not young at all.

The battery was flat, obviously. A man two units down had cables and no questions, which I appreciated. On the third try the engine caught, made a noise I felt in my back teeth, and then settled into an idle that sounded almost smug.

It took me a full minute to find first gear. When it finally engaged, I laughed out loud in an empty garage, which is not a thing I do.

I drove eleven miles, to a diner on Route 20 and back. Somewhere near the bridge a stone came up off the road and left a chip in the hood the size of a grain of rice. Two years ago that would have felt like damage.

He kept the car for a definite day that never came. I don't believe in that day anymore, so it goes out every Sunday now, chip and all.