The Best of Me

Tuck’s garage is a symbol of Dawson’s past—his only true home, a refuge, and the place where his romance with Amanda blossomed. The garage’s association with the past is connoted by the “dusty fan,” “rusting tire iron,” and other scattered mechanical parts (47). The connection to the past is further shown by the classic cars that Tuck restored there.

The garage is where Dawson accesses and relives his past. This aspect is complemented by the garage’s status as a place preserved in time: On seeing the garage after two decades, Dawson comments that it looks exactly that same. The garage still bears the marks of Dawson’s life as a high school boy in love. The workbench, with Amanda and Dawson’s initials carved into it, is still there. The word “forever” etched into the bench assumes a larger significance as a foreshadowing of Dawson and Amanda’s togetherness even after Dawson’s death. For Amanda too, the garage is a place of unresolved memories, where she occasionally “poke[d] around” to “figure out what the past really meant to her” (192).

The garage becomes a kind of time warp where Dawson’s past and present meet. This mixing of the past and present is reflected in Dawson seeing Amanda “staring back at him from across the years” (44) when he first arrives at the garage after Tuck’s death.