Page 112 of The Woman in the Garage

“Nah. You’re stuck with me now.”

“Thank God,” he said.

Then we turned to the preacher.

Santo - 12 years

I leaned down to snatch a tricycle off of the front path, taking it back to the garage as the sound of laughter drifted toward me from the backyard.

My lips curved up, never sick of that sound. The belly laughs, the squeals, the tap of little feet? It was all music Dasha and I danced to every day.

I made my way through the back gate to see our four youngest out in the yard, three of them playing on the massive playground their grandmother had given them as a gift.

The youngest, though, was standing over a toy truck we’d bought. It was one where you could pop the hood and take out the engine parts. It came complete with a toolkit and everything.

That was a gift from the mechanics at Phil’s when they’d found out Dasha had been pregnant the first time. It was a toy that had interested only our eldest. And now, our youngest.

She stood there in front of the popped hood, hands on her hips, staring down at the engine.

“What seems to be the problem here?” I asked as I walked up.

“Da oil,” she declared, grabbing the dipstick and pulling it out. Then, I shit you not, wiping the damn thing, then setting it back in. “There.”

“All fixed?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Fifty-hundred.”

“Fifty-hundred? For an oil change? What kind of racket are you running?” I asked. “How about one hug instead?” I asked, holding out my arms.

She walked right into them, letting me lift her up and swing her around. Until the other kids caught sight of me and ran over to say hi as well.

Dasha and I had gotten busy on the baby-making pretty immediately after the wedding. Then she’d popped them out all in quick order.

“I’m gonna go see what Mommy is up to,” I said. But they were already taking off on some new adventure.

I made my way in the back door, finding our eldest, a boy that looked almost identical to how I had in pictures at the same age, sitting at the kitchen table, pieces of a model car spread all across the wood.

His brow was furrowed and his lips curled inward in concentration.

“Hey, bud,” I said, rubbing his head in passing, knowing better than to interrupt him when he was working on his cars. He had a whole acrylic showcase in his room full of them.

“Hey you,” Dasha said, shooting me a smile over her shoulder as she stirred sauce on the stove.

“Your kid out there tried to rake me over the coals for a makeshift oil change,” I told her, coming up behind her. “Didn’t even use a rag to check the dipstick or anything. Just wiped it right on her pretty dress.”

“She is the strangest mix of me and her Uncle Phil,” Dasha said, leaning back into me, her eyes drifting closed.

“Long day?” I asked, nuzzling into her neck.

“Yourchildren…”

“Uh oh. It’s never good when they’re justmychildren. What’d they do?”

“Oh, the usual antics. Only one of them found that damn fish plaque in the garage and decided to put new batteries in it.”

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