Chapter 2 - What We Overheard
I stepped back from the doorway just as Derek came down the hall.
The second he saw my face, he stopped moving.
"Ren? What happened?"
I put a finger to my lips and waved him closer. We stood together outside the guest room, both of us barely breathing.
Melissa's voice came again, muffled but clear enough. "Remember — if anyone asks, you were just playing."
Derek's whole body went rigid beside me.
Then Tyler's small voice cut through, and it erased any doubt left in the room.
"But you told us to hit Aunt Renee's car."
Derek's hand shot toward the doorknob. I grabbed his wrist and held on.
He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. I shook my head.
Not yet.
If we burst in right then, I already knew exactly how it would go. Melissa would scream first and deny everything second. She'd twist it around until the conversation became about whether two small boys deserved punishment for obeying the person they trusted most in the world.
That wasn't the lesson I wanted them walking away with.
Melissa had already taught her sons something ugly that afternoon. I wanted to replace it with something better before the day was over.
After everyone finally cleared out, Derek stood beneath the porch light next to the crossover for a long time without saying anything. When Derek gets truly angry, he goes quiet — and this was the quietest I'd seen him in years.
I stood next to him. He ran his fingers over one of the dents.
"I heard her," he said.
"I know."
"She told them to do this. Her own kids."
I nodded.
"I'm calling her right now."
"Tomorrow," I said.
He turned on me. "Tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because right now you're angry enough to say something you'll regret."
He looked back at the ruined windshield. "I'm pretty sure I'm angry enough to say something I'd actually enjoy."
Despite everything, I almost laughed. Then his face changed, and the humor drained right out of it.
"I kept telling you, 'that's just Melissa.'" He shook his head slowly. "Every time she showed up without calling. Every time she dumped the boys on you. Every time she insulted you and you tried to draw a line."
He looked straight at me.
"I made dealing with her easier on myself by expecting you to absorb it. That's on me."
It mattered, hearing him say that. It just didn't fix a windshield. And it definitely didn't undo the lesson Melissa had just handed her sons.
The next morning we handled the practical side first. We photographed every dent, every crack. We called the insurance company. We got two separate repair estimates. Whatever came next, Melissa wasn't going to leave us holding the bill by herself.
Then I made one more call.
"Dawson's Auto Care," a familiar gravelly voice answered.
"Frank? It's Renee."
He laughed before I even finished my sentence. "Derek already wreck that new car of his?"
"Not Derek."
I told him what happened. He went quiet for a few seconds.
"How old are the boys?"
"Five and seven."
"And their mother told them to do it?"
"Yes."
He sighed, long and heavy. "Then don't punish those kids for listening to the person who was supposed to teach them better."
"I don't intend to."
"Good. Teach them what she didn't."
That was exactly why I'd called him. Frank had known Derek since high school, and Tyler and Cole loved visiting his shop, always begging to see the car lifts and the giant foam sprayers.
We talked for another ten minutes. No tools. No mechanical work. Nothing remotely dangerous. Just one carefully supervised morning showing two boys how much work goes into caring for something instead of destroying it.
When I hung up, Derek was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed.
"Well?"
I smiled for the first time since the windshield cracked. "I need a box."
He raised an eyebrow.
"A pretty big one."
By Thursday, everything was ready. Inside the box sat two small blue work shirts. One had TYLER stitched across the chest. The other had COLE. Underneath, two pairs of tiny work gloves, bright sponges, small plastic buckets, and one appointment card that read:
SATURDAY — 8:00 A.M.
DAWSON'S AUTO CARE
TYLER & COLE — FIRST SHIFT
Derek read the card twice, then looked up at me.
"She's going to lose her mind."
"Probably."
"You sure about this?"
I taped the box shut. "Absolutely sure."
The package landed on Melissa's porch Friday evening. At exactly 6:17, my phone rang.
I put it on speaker.
Melissa didn't even say hello.
"HOW DARE YOU SEND MY CHILDREN WORK UNIFORMS."
Derek clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.
I kept my voice pleasant. "Hi, Mel. Did both shirts fit okay?"
"What is wrong with you?"
"Nothing at all. How about the gloves?"
"THEY ARE CHILDREN, RENEE."
Derek's face hardened at that. He looked at me and nodded once.
I said the thing I'd been sitting on for a full week.
"Exactly, Melissa."
Silence on the line.
"So if they were old enough for you to hand them a baseball bat and point them at my car, they're old enough to spend one morning learning how to take care of one instead."
Her voice cracked back up an octave. "My boys are not doing one second of work for you!"
Derek held out his hand. I passed him the phone.
"Mel."
Her tone flipped instantly, sugary again. "Martin — I mean, Derek — tell your wife she's lost her mind."
Derek stared straight through the kitchen window at our battered crossover.
"They're children," he said, calm and flat.
For a split second, Melissa must have thought she'd won.
Then Derek kept going.
May you like
"And that's exactly why I'm furious with their mother."
For once in her life, Melissa had absolutely nothing to say back.
