She approached me.
"Where's the car?"
I couldn't answer.
Her expression changed.
Then she noticed the police tape near the section of driveway where the investigation had been conducted.
For a moment, she stared.
"Where's Dad's car?"
I looked toward her.
My throat tightened.
"They crushed it."
She froze.
For several seconds, she didn't move.
Then she shook her head.
"No."
I tried to speak.
She stepped backward.
"No. That's not funny."
I swallowed.
"I'm not joking."
She stared.
Then her face changed.
Anger.
Disbelief.
And finally something much deeper.
She covered her mouth.
For a moment, she seemed unable to breathe.
Then she began crying.
I moved toward her.
She pushed against my chest once, not in anger at me, but with the desperate refusal of someone who couldn't accept what she'd heard.
"How could you let them?"
The words hurt.
But I understood.
She was grieving.
I looked down.
"I wasn't here."
She began shaking.
Then she stepped forward and embraced me.
For several minutes, we stood together in the driveway.
Two grown adults holding each other beside the place where our father's greatest mechanical treasure had been destroyed.
No amount of money could undo that moment.
Not four million.
Not forty million.
The Phoenix was gone as an intact automobile.
And the car that carried so many memories of our childhood would never look the way it had that morning.
That night, my sister and I sat in the workshop.
The garage floor was finished.
The climate-control system worked.
The new lighting illuminated every corner.
And the special storage area I'd prepared for the Phoenix stood empty.
The irony was unbearable.
I'd spent weeks making the garage safer.
Then watched strangers destroy the car before it could return.
My sister walked toward the workbench.
She picked up one of our father's old screwdrivers.
For several seconds, she turned it in her hands.
Then she looked toward me.
"Remember when he made us clean every tool before putting it away?"
I smiled sadly.
"Every Saturday."
She laughed through tears.
"He'd check the drawer."
I nodded.
"And if something was in the wrong place, he'd make us find where it belonged."
For a moment, we were children again.
Standing beside the garage workbench.
Listening to our father explain why a good mechanic never blamed a machine for careless work.
My sister sat down.
Then looked toward the empty storage space.
"Do you think it's really worth four million?"
I nodded.