She feels Mel’s hands join hers around the cone. With strength born of necessity, they rip away the rubber. Rose’s hand clamps around the few inches of metal rod remaining. Necessity’s strength has been used up. “Help me,” she whispers. Mel’s fist closes around Rose’s.

“What now?”

Rose presses the clutch pedal down with her knee. “Toward you.” They force the small rod an inch toward Mel. “Up an inch.” It moves up. “Now toward me.”

When it’s done, Rose lifts her knee from the clutch and, with both hands, jams the gas pedal to the floor. There is a lurch and a crash, then the scream of tires spinning on concrete. Rose’s head hits the console. In the black of the dark, she does not know if she is conscious or unconscious. For a moment she cannot remember where she is, why she is.

A scream brings her back to herself—wherever that is. Her hands are not on the gas, but the truck is still running. It hasn’t coughed and died.

“Gigi! Are you still here?” It’s Mel.

“Here,” Rose gasps.

“Help me. The gas pedal.”

“Right.” Rose finds the hands at the ends of her arms and forces them to sweep the floor of the old truck. “Ah!” Her hand closes around one of Mel’s.

“Hold down,” Mel says. Rose finds the gas pedal. Together, their hands squash it into the floor. The shriek of tires fills the world with a howl of power too long kept silent. The truck shudders around them as if it will explode, blowing them and the garage to rubble and bone.

“It’s not working!” Mel wails.

“Keep on!” Rose shouts. Four hands hold the gas pedal to the floorboard of the ancient truck. Harley’s beloved old cherry-red darling merges in Rose’s heart with the strength of his arms and force of his smile.

Suddenly there is a crack and crunch of rotting wood. A splinter of daylight pierces through, a dusty sword that cuts into the grave. Rose can see Mel’s face. Tears run down her granddaughter’s cheeks in contrast to the determined set of her soft mouth.

The truck hurtles backward with a grinding roar. Light shatters with a volcanic eruption of wood and the cry of metal torn loose. Shards of wood and dust fly by the edges of Rose’s vision as if they are on a land-bound ship that is somehow sinking in a storm of beams and splinters. Seemingly bent on vengeance, Harley’s truck tears through the wood of the garage door.

Then there is all the light and air Rose could dream of.

“We are out!” Mel yells.

This new world ends abruptly as the truck smashes into an immovable obstacle. Rose’s head smacks into something solid and she is slammed into the absolute darkness of oblivion.