The Longest Ride

while Luke rode off to inspect the herd. They’d made plans for him to pick her up the following day. To his surprise, he found her sitting on his porch when he got home later that afternoon.

She was clutching a newspaper, and when she faced him, there was something haunted in her expression.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“It about Ira,” she said. “Ira Levinson.”

It took a second for the name to come back to him. “You mean the guy we rescued from his car?”

She held out the newspaper. “Read this.”

He took the paper from her and scanned the headline, which described the auction that was to take place the next day.

Luke furrowed his brow, puzzled.

“This is an article about the auction.”

“The collection is Ira’s,” she said.
     

     
    It was all there in the article. Or a lot of it was, anyway. There were fewer personal details than he would have expected, but he learned a bit about Ira’s shop, and the article noted the date of his marriage to Ruth. It mentioned that Ruth had been a schoolteacher and that they’d begun to collect modern art together after the end of World War II. They’d never had children.

The remainder of the article concerned the auction and the pieces that were going to be offered, most of which meant nothing to Luke. It concluded, however, with a line that gave him pause, affecting him the same way it had Sophia.

Sophia brought her lips together as he reached the end of the article.

“He never made it out of the hospital,” she said, her voice soft. “He died from his injuries the day after we found him.”

Luke raised his eyes to the sky, closing them for a moment. There was nothing really to say.

“We were the last people to see him,” she said. “It doesn’t say that, but I know it’s true. His wife was dead, they had no kids, and he’d pretty much become a hermit. He died alone, and the thought of that just breaks my heart. Because…”

When she trailed off, Luke drew her near, thinking about the letter Ira had written to his wife.

“I know why,” Luke said. “Because it kind of breaks my heart, too.”

32

    Sophia
    S ophia had just finished putting in her earrings on the day of the auction when she saw Luke’s truck come to a stop in front of the house. Though she’d teased Luke earlier about having only a single suit, in truth she owned only two, both with midlength skirts and matching jackets. And she’d purchased those only because she’d needed something classy and professional to wear to interviews. At the time, she’d worried that two wouldn’t suffice, what with all the interviews she’d no doubt line up. Which made her think about that old saying… how did it go? People plan, God laughs, or something like that?

As it was, she’d worn each of them once. Knowing that Luke’s suit was dark, she’d opted for the lighter of the two. Despite her early enthusiasm, she now felt strangely ambivalent about going to the auction. Discovering that it was Ira’s collection made it more personal somehow, and she feared that with every painting, she’d recall how he’d appeared as she’d read his letter in the hospital. Yet to not go seemed disrespectful, since the collection obviously meant so much to him and his wife. Still feeling conflicted, she left her room and went downstairs.

Luke was waiting just inside the foyer.

“Are you ready for this?”

“I guess,” she temporized. “It’s different now.”

“I know. I thought about Ira most of the night.”

“Me too.”

He forced a smile, though there wasn’t a lot of energy behind it. “You look terrific, by the way. You’re all grown up.”

“You too,” she said, meaning it. But…

“Why do I feel like we’re going to a funeral?” she asked him.

“Because,” he said, “in a way, we are.”
     

     
    They entered one of the enormous exhibition rooms at the convention center an hour before noon. It was nothing like she’d expected. At the far end of the room was a stage, surrounded by curtains on three sides; on the right were two long tables on elevated daises, each bearing ten telephones; on the other side stood the podium, no doubt for the auctioneer. A large screen formed the backdrop on the stage, and at the very front stood an empty easel. Approximately three hundred chairs faced the stage in stadium formation, allowing the bidders an unobstructed view.

Though the room was crowded, only a few of the seats were taken. Instead, most of the