"You've got an eye for it," Earl told him one evening, with a gruffness that did not hide his pleasure.
"I've got an eye for inventory," Ray said. "That's what I do all day."
"Same thing," said his father.
---
Megan's part began with a shoebox.
She had come out one Sunday to bring lunch and found Earl at the kitchen table with a shoebox full of paper: receipts, invoices from his parts supplier, scrawled notes about who owed what, and a stack of checks he had not yet deposited. She looked at it for a full minute without speaking.
"Earl," she said finally. "How much money have you made since January?"
He frowned. "I'd have to add it up."
"And how much have you spent on parts?"
"I'd have to add that up too."
"And who still owes you money?"
He looked at the shoebox, then at her, and something in his expression reminded her of a schoolboy caught without his homework.
"June used to do this," he said quietly.
Megan sat down across from him and pulled the shoebox toward her.
"I know," she said. "Let me."
She was an office manager for a veterinary clinic in town, and she had spent fifteen years untangling other people's records. It took her three evenings to sort the shoebox. She set up a simple spreadsheet on her laptop: income, expenses, customers, parts sold, parts bought. When she was done she turned the screen around and showed Earl and Ray the numbers.