"My dad always said a part isn't fixed just because you can make it run once," he told the committee. "It's fixed when you can explain why it runs and trust it to do that again tomorrow."
Tate heard the sentence and looked at me. It sounded so much like something Marguerite might have said about a chemistry experiment that we both smiled. Riggs was selected on the strength of his application, not because his story made us emotional. The committee later told him what had mattered most was his willingness to describe mistakes and the steps he had taken to correct them.
The following November he rebuilt his first carburetor in the college shop as part of a graded project. He sent Tate a photograph showing the finished assembly beside his instructor's evaluation sheet. The grade was good, but the photograph that pleased me most came afterward. It showed Riggs helping another student who was struggling with the same adjustment.
Tate volunteered as a peer mentor during school breaks. He traveled to the technical program several times each semester, bringing his notebooks and talking with students about the patient side of restoration. The first time he stood in front of a class, he was nervous enough to forget where he had placed his own notes. I watched from the back as he recovered, laughed at himself, and began talking about the Mustang.
He did not tell them about Hadley. He told them about the night his mother insisted on cherry-red upholstery when every supplier wanted to sell us black. He told them about getting the rear differential wrong the first time and having to take it apart again. He described what it felt like to hear an engine start after months of careful work, and how quickly pride disappeared when a loose hose reminded you that finishing was not the same thing as testing.
Afterward a student asked whether he planned to become a mechanic. Tate said he wanted to study mechanical engineering, but that no matter where he ended up, he intended to know how to use the tools in his hands. The student asked whether his mother had taught him mechanics. Tate answered that she had taught him something more useful: how not to give up when the first solution failed.
We created small brass plaques for the students who completed the scholarship program. I considered reproducing Marguerite's original inscription, then realized those words belonged specifically to Tate and me. Instead, the front carried her name and the phrase "Build something worth passing on." On the back was a photograph of her original plaque, accompanied by a short note explaining why the scholarship existed.
I still had a replica made for Tate, to keep when he eventually moved into a place of his own. The original stayed in the Mustang, exactly where Marguerite had riveted it. The difference mattered. Some things can be shared, and some things should be preserved in the form they were given.