Back at the garage, Jack had left a light on. He was sitting on a stool with a manual open, rubbing his knee. When Ethan came in, Jack looked up and asked how the cemetery visit had gone. Ethan said it was good, then hesitated in the doorway. “I think she would've liked you,” he said.
Jack closed the manual very slowly. “I hope so.”
“Not because you fixed everything.”
“I haven't fixed everything.”
“I know.” Ethan smiled. “Because you never tell me I have to earn dinner.”
Jack cleared his throat and asked the boy to hand him a socket. It was a ridiculous response, and both of them knew it. Ethan handed him the socket anyway. Some feelings still needed to pass through familiar movements before they could become words.
By the end of six months, Ethan had completed the first stage of his training and earned a recognized shop certification. He was no expert; he knew that better than anyone. But he could diagnose common electrical faults, service brakes and suspension components under supervision, and explain repair estimates to customers without trying to bluff his way through questions. Jack put a small sign above the second workbench with Ethan's name on it, written in the same practical lettering as the tool cabinets.
The shop hired two additional mechanics as bookings increased. Jack insisted on interviewing them carefully, but he allowed Ethan to sit in on the conversations and ask questions. Ethan always asked what a candidate did after making a mistake and whether they were willing to teach someone who knew less. He had learned that skill mattered, but patience mattered too. Jack listened to the questions and thought about the boy who had once apologized for eating stew.
The legal case would move forward that autumn and continue well beyond the summer celebration still to come. Marcus Vane supplied records under a formal cooperation arrangement, and federal prosecutors eventually filed charges against Caldwell and several associates concerning fraud, threats, and corrupt property transactions. Civil suits by affected landowners proceeded separately, supported by documents many had thought useless when they first received them. The investigations took longer than anyone in Red Creek wanted, and the court did not deliver instant justice simply because a video had been seen millions of times.
Ethan learned to live with that pace. He testified when asked, corrected errors in his own recollections, and resisted the temptation to embellish details that already mattered enough. Doyle sometimes called with procedural updates she was permitted to share. She always asked how his schooling was going before returning to the case. Ethan liked that. It reminded him that to her he was a person who might have a future, not simply a witness whose value would end when the investigation closed.