One clean start

The car started on the first try this morning.

I had gone down to copy the information I would need when I called about the inspection. Arrange inspection was still unchecked several pages back in the notebook. The car had stayed where I left it. I did not need it to get to work.

I turned the key anyway.

The engine caught before I heard the longer turning sound from the other morning. It settled into the ordinary vibration I had wanted from it then.

I let it run.

One clean start was new evidence. It was also the kind of evidence that made the earlier failures feel negotiable. The engine was running now. An inspection would take time, and the shop might find nothing wrong if the car behaved for them too.

That would not make the appointment unnecessary. It would only make it inconvenient.

I shut the engine off and called a shop.

The person who answered asked whether the car started now.

“Yes.”

There was a pause before they asked what I wanted inspected.

I said the engine had turned without catching on the first attempt, started on the second, and failed again after I came back. I said it had started once today. I did not give them a theory about why.

They said an intermittent problem might not happen while the car was there. I said I understood. They offered an opening, and I took it.

I would have to leave the car with them and get back without it. That part was already solved. The bus did not need the car to fail before I was allowed to use it.

In the notebook, I checked Arrange inspection.

Below it I wrote: My father told me to look at the car when I didn't need it to get anywhere.

That sentence belonged with the decision. Leaving it out had not made the first bus trip more independent. It had only made the list less accurate.

The reminder to call him was still unchecked.

At the bus stop, the inspection confirmation arrived on my phone. I read it, then opened my father's contact.

The bus came while his name was still on the screen.

I put the phone away and got on.