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blessing.

Chapter 4
    M aura squared her shoulders. If she couldn’t handle the car, then she’d just have to find a phone. Or walk. Or wait a day for Mick to come back, to see if she was still hanging around annoying his grannie. Why was he so protective of Mrs. Nolan? She’d been the one to invite Maura. Maura hadn’t just showed up and imposed herself on a stranger. She had every right to be here.
    The car was no model she recognized. It was small, probably European, its color faded to a tired grey. Maura walked around it, jiggling the key ring in her hand. Its tires seemed to be in good shape, and it had a license plate, so she wouldn’t be breaking any local laws. She hoped. Was it insured? Or was she? She had no idea who to ask, although Mick seemed like a law-abiding type, based on her extremely brief interaction with him. She opened the door and slid intothe driver’s seat, its upholstery cracked with age. She spent a moment locating all the relevant parts, then stuck the key into the ignition, planted one foot on the brake, pushed down on what she hoped was the clutch, and turned the key. To her surprise the engine started up on the first try, and it did have a full tank of gas, as Mick had said. She grinned to herself, almost against her will: she had wheels!
    Now what? Sitting still was fine, but she was supposed to move, starting with getting out of the woefully small enclosure and through that narrow gap between the posts. And then navigate what amounted to a one-lane road lined with either towering hedges or more stone walls close to either side.
    At least the gear pattern was stamped on the gearshift. How did it go? Shift into the gear you wanted, slowly release the clutch, and keep one foot on the brake at all times. Maura shifted into reverse and let out the clutch slowly—and stalled. She tried again, raising her foot at a snail’s pace, until the car actually began to move—which startled her, and she stalled again. She cursed and tried again, and this time she moved backward by a few feet, at which point she was afraid she was going to crash through the hedgerow and jammed both feet on the pedals.
    This was ridiculous!
    Fifteen minutes later Maura had managed to maneuver the car so that at least it was facing the direction she wanted to go. If she turned right, at least it was downhill, and then she should turn…right at the bottom? Inch by inch she moved forward and managed to slide through the stone posts without scraping anything. She made the turn, then slowly went down the hill, braking all the way. Thank goodnessthere were no other cars coming up the road, though at the bottom she discovered a police car blocking the way to her left. Not that she wanted to go that direction, but the mere presence of a cop made her stall out again. She sat at the bottom of the hill and pounded the steering wheel in frustration. The cop walked over, and she rolled down the window.
    “Having a bit of trouble?” he asked politely.
    She looked carefully at him: he appeared younger than she was, and he hadn’t quite grown into his uniform, which looked almost new. But he didn’t seem to be making fun of her. “Yes, I guess I am. I don’t drive much, and I’ve never driven on the left, and I’ve never driven this car before. Sorry, am I in the way?” That seemed unlikely, since there were no moving cars in sight.
    “Not at all. That’d be Bridget Nolan’s car, right?”
    “Yes. She’s letting me borrow it.” Maura tried not to sound defensive, and hoped the nice young policeman wouldn’t ask for proof, because she didn’t have anything like documentation. Would he think she had stolen it?
    Her worries were answered quickly but raised another question when he asked, “So you’d be Maura Donovan?”
    He knew who she was? “Yes, I am. How did you know that? And you are?”
    “Sean Murphy. Mrs. Nolan’s been talking of nothing else but your visit for days now. She wanted to be sure we’d all look