He smiled despite himself. "I really am just tired."
"Did you eat?"
"Some crackers."
"That's not dinner."
"No, it isn't."
Sophie was quiet for a moment. "Is the girl scared?"
"Yes."
"Tell her the garage has the red toolbox with the stars. Maybe she'll like it."
"She noticed already."
"Good. Can you tell her I painted it?"
"I can."
Sophie's voice lowered. "Dad, I was mad when you weren't here. Then Mrs. Alvarez told me why. I'm not mad now."
He sat on the edge of the desk, his throat tightening in a way he had not expected. "You were allowed to be mad. I promised I'd be home."
"You also say we're supposed to help when we can." She paused. "You can't make both things happen every time."
Evan stared at the milk carton visible through the tow truck's passenger window. He had been thinking all night about how to apologize to his daughter. She had already found a truth he could not have phrased so simply.
"I'll be home when Mia's with her mom," he said.
"Okay. Bring the milk."
He laughed softly. "I won't forget."
After the call, he went back to the engine he had abandoned earlier, not because the customer needed the repair immediately, but because the familiar shape of work helped his hands become useful again. He tightened one bolt and cleaned a housing. He checked the pressure on the overhead line and wrote a note for Luis about a damaged seal. Ordinary tasks continued to exist on nights when extraordinary things happened.
Wells joined him near the bay door at four. She had been awake longer than he had and looked it. Her uniform was drying unevenly near the heater, and rainwater left pale marks on her boots.
"You can go home when child services takes over," she said. "We have people here."
"I told her I'd stay until she knew who was taking her."
"She knows now. We have her mother on the phone."
"I think she heard something bigger than my exact words."
Wells looked through the office window. Mia slept with her hands wrapped around the blanket, her face turned toward the place Evan usually sat. "Then stay," Wells said.
When the rain softened before dawn, the building stopped sounding like a metal drum and began sounding like a building again. Evan could hear water dripping from the gutter, the generator's low rumble, and traffic passing farther away on the highway. An ambulance came and went after checking Mia's breathing once more. Child-services staff confirmed that Claire's identity and custody status were verified and that reunification could proceed as soon as the road opened.
Evan washed the cocoa cups and folded the foil blanket. He wrote down the times of the calls while he still remembered them. He knew the notes would not prove that he had done everything right. They would help the people whose responsibility came next understand what had happened.