forecast says itâs gonna be around seventy-five today. If it stays like this, next Sunday we can take a trip to the lake or maybe head straight for the beach. Which would you prefer?â
âBeach!â cried Henry as he took his first spoonful of mushy cereal.
âDid you remember you need to go to Aunt Jasmineâs after school?â Jim asked, adopting a more serious tone.
âSure, Dad, I packed my bag last night. Everythingâs in there, Iâm all set.â
âGood. Look, Iâm sorry I canât pick you up and Iâm leaving you with that heavy backpack to carry round, but the Howards need their car by lunchtime and I need to work on Tedâs Jeep first,â Jim said, attempting to justify himself to his son.
âIâm grown up enough to look after myself,â replied Henry proudly.
âYou havenât even taken your elementary school exams yet, thereâs plenty of time to grow up!â
âThe exams are less than a month away, so you canât go on thinking Iâm just a kid!â
âOK, Henry, weâll resume this conversation when youâve done the exams. Enjoy being ten, because Iâm telling you things get a lot tougher...â Jim said, unable to disguise a certain level of bitterness.
âIt canât get any tougher than the math test Iâve got today. I hate Miss Anderson. She looks like a fish!â replied Henry, giggling to himself.
âKid, math was never my strong suit, but youâd do well to learn....at least until you can afford a calculator! Come on, eat up!â Jim said with a chuckle, before turning back to the TV.
Chapter 2
P unctual as always, Jim dropped his son off outside the school and paused briefly to watch as the hordes of five-to-eleven-year-olds entered the main building, their chatter and squeals of laughter creating a familiar schoolyard buzz. It was a sound he liked. It reminded him of his childhood and brightened his mood. Jim stood trance-like among the other parents, watching the moms chatting to one another and daydreaming that his wife was among them, imagining how great it would feel to be there with Bet alongside him, catching up with the other moms and dads before going to work.
It was just one of the many experiences in life that he had been denied the minute his wife had been snatched away from him by the cruel hands of fate. A fate which, even all after all these years, Jim had still refused to accept.
Chapter 3
I t was nine thirty, and the sun filtering through the gaps in the auto repair shop shutters was already a problem for Jim, a guy who could sweat for America.
The Howardsâ Mercedes was a genuine antique: a 1954 300 SL with gull-wing doors. It had taken Jim weeks to find an original replacement muffler, and on top of that heâd had to make several secondary repairs. The car parked in his repair shop was worth more than four million dollars, and the job was set to earn him a cool ten thousand. The Howards were filthy rich and Jim had been lucky enough to befriend Ronald Howard at college, long before he married Carol Spencer, a woman who somehow managed to be even uglier than she was rich. Carol was probably one of the ugliest women in the entire United States, her looks irredeemable even with the most advanced plastic surgery, but for Ronald it was always about the money: â There ainâ t no piece of ass can compete with a private jet!â heâd always say when one of his friends asked how on earth he managed to sleep with that woman.
At Ronaldâs request and expense, Jim had taken his business to â Frankieâ s Luxury Car Partsâ, whose owner could get his hands on anything and charged accordingly. Frankie had friends and collectors of all ages as clients, and he counted many of the countryâs car thieves and junkyard workers among his loyal associates. Frankie actually was the nickname of his great-grandfather Franco, the son of Italian immigrants who came to the United States in 1882. Franco built up his business alone, using methods that were effective if not always legal and ensuring that luxury car parts would provide a life of luxury for all his descendants, including Tommy, who now ran the company and was known to everyone as Frankie, after his great-grandfather.
â I donâ t know how much you paid for this muffler, Ronald, but itâs been a real bitch to fit,â thought Jim, dripping with sweat as he lay under the car.
He could really use those ten thousand big ones. Jim couldnât afford to take on any employees because he needed to save to put his son through college and to pay his mortgage, which had becoming crippling after the financial crisis.
His was a small repair shop and most of what business he did get came in the form of repairing old clunkers. Clients like the Howards were as rare as hensâ teeth. People with new or luxury cars took their business to authorized repair shops, leaving Jim to deal with his friends or people even worse off than him who would haggle over a twenty-dollar job. Ted Burtonâs aging Wrangler, which was what kept Jim busy most of the time, was another story. The Jeep spent at least two months every year in Jimâs repair shop, not because there was anything wrong with it in particular, but because Ted was an old friend and now that heâd retired, he had nothing better to do than stop by once or twice a week to have the engine serviced and chew the fat with Jim.
Just like its owner, the Wrangler was rough and ready, good for another fifty thousand miles in the toughest conditions, even though it had rumbled in complaint ever since the time Ted forgot to top up the antifreeze and it blew up on Ocean Drive, an incident that resulted in Ted always carrying bottles of antifreeze in the trunk and bringing the car in for regular checks.
It was unbearably hot as Jim wheeled himself out from under the Mercedes where he had been working on the damned muffler. His face and hands were covered in oil. Jim had never managed to break the habit of using the palm of his hands to wipe the sweat from his brow rather than his wrists,which would have been the only way to keep his face clean because he didnât wear gloves.
He got to his feet and went to check his paperwork in the tiny room at the back of the repair shop that doubled up as an office and chill-out zone. It was the only distraction in his place of work, apart from the tiny adjoining john.
â Bills, bills, bills. For Christâ s sake!â Jim said to himself as he put the papers back in order. He picked up the phone from the tiny square desk fixed to the wall and dialed the number of his sister Jasmine.
He informed her Henry would be coming over at lunchtime, asked her how she was and told her that, sooner or later, he wanted to take a trip to Ireland so he could once again take in the emerald-green hills and introduce his son to the clean, fresh air of his homeland. Jim Lewis was no poet, but behind his knitted brow and hardened expression lay a fairly sensitive and melancholy soul.
He had changed a great deal since Bet died, losing some of that sparkle that had enabled him to see things in a very different, positive light. He was very close to Jasmine, even though they were fifteen years apart. Jim was nearly forty-eight and Jasmine over sixty, the other difference being that Jim was in perfect health while his sister had been breathing with just one lung for several years.
Jim came to the United States first, having spent the
