The Hummingbird by Stephen P. Kiernan Page B

a moment I was afraid he was in the mood for sex. Instead he took my hands and led me to the table. He pulled out a chair and waited till I sat.
    “I drove an amazing car today,” he said, moving to the refrigerator. “One of those new RS-Series Audis. Man, what a rig.”
    Michael didn’t care that most of his customers were rich. The cars were what interested him and kept his mechanics motivated. He opened the fridge and reached in with both hands. “The guy’s son banged into a curb and bent the control arm. For which I hope he gave the kid’s neck a proper wringing, by the way.”
    In his right hand, Michael held up a jug of iced tea. In his left, a bottle of Pinot Gris from McMinnville, a vineyard we’d visited once, an hour’s drive away. I pointed at his left.
    “It’s a simple fix,” he continued. “Though Audi parts are pricey, times three. Afterward I took the thing out for a test rip.”
    He popped the cork and set the corkscrew aside. Taking a wine glass from the cabinet, he filled it generously. “I have never felt such compression before. Like the engine did not care what the load was.”
    He handed me the glass and pulled up his own chair. “You know that long hill, up to the campus of Lewis and Clark? Sixty miles an hour and the car never downshifted. Like the hill wasn’t even there.”
    I held the glass to my nose and smelled peaches. I took a mouthful. Despite my eyes’ best effort, a single tear spilled out. While I drank good cold wine, Cleon was still suffering.
    Michael took my hand again. “Should I . . . um . . .” He kissed my knuckles. “Would you like to hear about the MG we had in today, too?”
    I wiped my cheek and nodded.
    “A beauty, Deb. Racing green with tan interior, chrome spoke wheels. A guy brought it in because of a wobble at high speeds, so I put it up on the lift. And man, the classic rack-and-pinion steering. Simple and tight.”
    He was holding my hand, running his thumb over my knuckles. I took a good gulp of wine. “Any others?”
    “Late in the day there was a Jag XKE. A 1965 model, with the 3.8 engine. But a disaster. Came in on a flatbed.” He bent toward me. “This college guy inherited it from his grandfather, who’d left it in a barn for thirty years, and he wants us to get it running again. Gary stood there, not saying a word while I went over the car, but I swear I could hear him calculating.”
    I leaned my head against my big man, melting, letting go. “Keep going, Michael. What else?”
    There were times, too, when I needed to do all the talking. Details of what I’d experienced would only leave me in peace if I described them fully and put them out into the air. When that happened, Michael was reliable about listening, even if it took from the moment I arrived home to the second I fell asleep. He enabled me to work in hospice because every day I had a loving detox.
    I remember his buddy Brian hosting a Super Bowl party one year, and I overheard him giving Michael a hard time.
    “You are the worst snake I have ever seen, man,” Brian said, bumping shoulders with him.
    “What are you talking about?” Michael asked.
    “Listening. I’ve seen you, giving Deb the Big Ear. I’m sure it gets you plenty of action. But man, don’t you know that makes all us regular self-absorbed guys look really bad? You need to cut that shit out.”
    Michael laughed. “Go get me a beer.”
    But the next time I unloaded on him, standing at the sink and describing Charles—a forty-three-year-old guy with a brutally slow case of Lou Gehrig’s disease, which was torturing his wife and breaking his daughters’ hearts—Michael came up and hugged me from behind. “Sometimes I think you have the saddest job on earth.”
    “The opposite,” I said, leaning back on him, “Actually hospice is the most enriching job on earth, because a person who is dying savors everything, takes nothing for granted, and that is contagious. When I’ve seen a man give what may