Page 2 of Sweet Home

Unfortunately, that was all it had taken for the body of the car to be wrenched at an angle so that the front end looked like it was turning its nose up at the rest of the car.

It was a humble sedan, or at least it had been, almost as old as she was. The old car hadn’t really been worth anything to begin with, and now it was worth less than nothing. It would probably end up costing her money to have the thing towed.

To Dulcie it had been her freedom, and sometimes her home.

She had no idea what she was supposed to do now. She figured she should probably start walking, but all of her stuff was in the car, and it was so cold outside, colderthan anything she had ever experienced in the city. She thought about calling someone, but she didn’t know who, and she didn’t really even know where she was.

She was staring at her phone and just starting to panic when she heard the sound of another car approaching.

For a moment she was torn. She was a woman alone, in obvious distress, and there was no one else around for miles. It might be better to turn the car lights off and hide out inside than to risk getting into an even worse situation than the one she was currently in.

But it was too late, the vehicle was already slowing down and pulling to the side. It was getting darker, but she was pretty sure what she was seeing was a tow truck.

What are the chances of that?

She squinted into the headlights, praying that the driver meant her no harm.

The truck pulled up and the door swung open. A moment later, an older gentleman in a baseball cap lowered himself carefully onto the ground.

“You got yourself in a real pickle, didn’t you, young lady?” he called to her cheerfully.

She saw that his cap had a faded Giants logo on it, a lot like the one Grandaddy used to wear.

“I hit some ice,” Dulcie managed to reply.

“Dangerous stuff this time of year,” the old man said, nodding sagely. “Joe Fournier.”

He stuck out his hand and Dulcie took it, feeling like a small child with her frozen hand in his great big warm one. Joe Fournier seemed to have an echo of her grandfather’skindness, too.

Did you send him here for me, Grandaddy?

“Dulcie Bloom,” she said.

“That’s a nice name,” Joe said approvingly. “You’re new around here.”

It wasn’t really a question, but she nodded.

“Not much of an introduction, huh?” he said. “Welp, let’s see what we’ve got.”

She watched as he scrambled down and assessed the situation. It was really hard not to fret about how she was going to pay for this, and what she was going to do next. She had bet everything on this journey. It felt impossible to watch it all unravel when she was so close to her goal.

Not impossible,she thought to herself.Just the old Bloom family luck.

“I think we can get her out without a flatbed,” Joe said at length. “Go on up to the road so I don’t have to worry about you.”

She did as she was told, stomping her feet and pacing a little as Joe maneuvered his truck over and after a couple of botched attempts got her poor car hitched up.

“There you go,” Joe said, sounding genuinely delighted. “Hop on in, Dulcie Bloom.”

She climbed into the passenger seat, sighing with bliss at how good the heated cab felt.

“Cold out there, eh?” Joe said conversationally as he pulled out.

“It sure is,” she told him.

“Were you headed to Sugarville Grove?” he asked her.

“No, I was hoping to get up closer to Burlington,” she told him.

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