Owen carried his toolbox away from the garage door. Several people offered rides, including the woman who had first applauded, but he declined until he realized the last bus he could have taken was gone. Eleanor offered to drive him home. He considered saying no because accepting help from a stranger still made him uneasy, then remembered Ruth waiting and the hours he had already spent on his feet.
"You sure it isn't out of your way?" he asked.
"My hotel is twenty minutes in the other direction," Eleanor replied. "I've wasted twenty minutes on less important things than seeing a talented young man get home safely. Come on."
She helped him place the toolbox in the trunk of her rental car and sat beside him while he checked the cash once, privately, before folding it inside an envelope she found in the glove compartment. Owen stared at the bills as though they might disappear. Five thousand dollars was more money than he had ever carried, more than he earned in months of work, and far more than he had allowed himself to imagine arriving all at once.
Eleanor kept her eyes on the road. "What are you going to do with it?" she asked.
Owen was quiet for a long moment. Then he told her about the garage on Gratiot, the forfeiture notice, the cost of redemption, and the tools he had carried out under a stranger's supervision. He told her about Ruth and the two jobs. He did not tell the story to make her feel sorry for him. He told it because she had asked and because for once it seemed safe to answer honestly.
"You checked the balance recently?" Eleanor asked.
"Last month. The amount was a little under forty-one hundred with the fees. I don't know if they've added more."
"Then we'll verify it tomorrow morning," she said. "No reason to discover a new deadline by accident. Do you have a copy of the notice?"
"I keep all of them."
"Good. You'd be surprised how much of engineering is keeping the paperwork straight."
Owen smiled at that, a tired crooked smile that made him look his age for the first time all evening. He had half expected her to suggest using the money to buy new clothes or a better set of tools. Instead she was taking seriously a plan he had spent years building one small bill at a time. He found he could breathe a little more easily.
On Chain Street, Ruth had fallen asleep in her chair with the television playing quietly. She woke when Owen opened the door and looked at his shirt, his bruised neck, and the dark marks near his collar. Her face changed from sleepy irritation to alarm. "What happened to you?" she asked.