“That deal with Johnny Martin,” I said, striding toward Mother’s car and stabbing a thumb over my shoulder. “It’s the one that saves our business. And you just drove over top of it with your damned Chrysler.” My heartbeat had to be double its resting rate. 

“You left me sitting out here in the cold to come up with that line of malarkey?” Mother had climbed back into her treacherous New Yorker. She clutched the heavy metal and glass car door like a shield between us, with hands as strong as iron from years of pushing a wheelchair she’d only recently discarded. 

I came to a hard stop with a hand braced against the car roof. My breaths came deep and long, though I’d walked less than twenty yards from the office phone. The cold reality of iconic American steel purchased from a rival dealership in town stung my palm and burned a hole in my heart. 

“Is this what drove Dad to drink, you storming in to ruin a crucial sale?” A shotgun blast accusation, but Mother needed to understand the damages. In the back of my brain, Renée’s missing child kept stealing focus. She’d been gone for something like sixteen hours already.

“I didn’t come to argue about your father’s iniquities. I came to tell you to leave your sister be,” Mother stated, dour expression highlighted by slivers of silver streaking through her dark black hair. Just like everything with Mother, these signs of aging were designed to elicit sympathy and foster collaboration. An age-old tactic that had worked gangbusters with concerned teachers and relatives over my lifetime.

“You’re dead set to end this place and erase Dixon Pierce’s name from the earth.” 

“Oh, cry me a river! You’re father didn’t need any help screwing this place up, Son. You’re selling Toyotas for the love of Jesus! This is Mon-damn-tana, middle of cattle country U.S. of A, and your daddy planted rice.”

Her bold disregard of Akira’s heritage drove the knife a little deeper. 

“Do you have any idea how self-centered that sounds?” 

“I just tell it like it is. Makes no sense to sugar coat the thing.”

“Kept you in a nice big house didn’t it?” My mind calculated the missing child’s odds. If I left Miles City right now, she’d be twenty-two hours missing by the time I arrived in Eureka. 

Mother’s eyes blazed with an intensity that pinched the age out of her features. “I can tell you’ve already made up your mind to go. Same old story. That child wraps herself around a tree branch and yowls until some fool peels her off. Never bleeds a consequence. Barely has feet on the ground and she’s climbed to the top again.”

I could walk away, climb into the Tacoma, stop for a goodbye kiss from Nansi and the kids and drive like the devil to Eureka. I hadn’t been able to save my sister. But it might save a little child. 

“Do you have any idea how much she needs you to give a shit?” My facial muscles cramped. “A thousand times she’s run to you for compassion or understanding, but you just turn it back on her, accusing her of being weak and hapless!” I shook with anger. “Your rage at being crippled and stuck in a wheelchair sloshed onto the two of us, fire and brimstone poured out steaming hot. And Renée took the worst of it.” Mother’s multitude of offenses stuck like a rock in my throat.

The woman dismissed all of it and barreled onward. “You’re the biggest fool of all. Never gave her a chance to toughen up and learn how to handle the hard knocks of life. When I tried to wean her off the bottle, you’d go find it. Bail her out and she gets worse.” Her glare proved she had missed the point entirely. “Give the girl a damn chance to learn some responsibility. I know how this plays. She calls your silly little plastic pocket phone. You act tough, like you don’t care. She pours on the pitiful and waits for you to climb onto your stallion.” She deepened the sneer. “Just hang up. Better still, don’t answer. Act like that puny Dick Tracy thing hanging on your belt is broke.”

“Stop already! Ever since you kicked the wheelchair habit and started walking again it’s like you’re looking for someone to step on.”

“Hogwash, Connor Justin Pierce. Don’t take your disappointment out on me. Car sales ain’t the life a jet-setting airplane mechanic with a Hercule Poirot hobby finds agreeable. I know you’re just aching to cut up into the mountains so you can start sleuthing for your pitiful sister.”

The hair on my neck stood tall. A hot flush spread over my face. I clenched my fists, combating the urge to strangle her. All the hateful words she’d spat at Renée, degrading her for simply needing the love of her banished father. It blackened me inside, turned my mind toward murder.

“I’d be happy as a pig in horse shit to get out of the private eye game,” I said through gritted teeth. “Only, I need the money, because you keep stomping on every sale I get close to. I’m actively looking for ways to avoid helping anyone else with anything.” The phrase stung, like putting a favorite pet down for biting a trespasser.

She snorted. “Maybe you’ll turn out like your father after all.” With a yank, she thunked the car into gear. “Talk to Renée and you’ll do what you always do, drop your wrench, your wife, your kids, and charge in on the white steed. Noble savior. Don’t do it. Sure as shooting you’ll be up to your knightly neck in someone else’s nightmare.” 

Every muscle in my gut clamped down, holding back the enraged riposte.

“It don’t matter a nickel how much money she offers you, neither,” she tossed at the end of it. “That girl ain’t got collateral to charge a cup of coffee.” The tires scratched a spray of pebbles getting that Chrysler rolling, knocking me off balance in the process.

I kicked a loose stone and watched it miss Mother’s bumper and ping off the ABS hubcap of a ninety-eight Camry.

“For the love of Mother Lucy,” I shouted at the cloud of vapor she left behind. 

My head shook like a dog just up from the river, trying to clear my mind and emotions. If I let Mother cloud my judgment, I’d be sure to make a regrettable decision. I needed to think this through. And fast. That little girl was losing time. And I had no idea what to say to my wife to make the trip okay.