Millie checked the clock and gently reminded Brian that he needed to leave for the evening. He protested that they were closer than ever, but Rex told him the motorcycle could wait until the next morning, and the people working on it would still be there. That answer should have been easy to accept. Instead, it made his eyes burn, because nothing in his life had felt reliably present since the ambulance came for his grandfather.
Before leaving, he tucked the photograph of Sarah into the notebook, between two clean sheets of paper. He put the letter back into its envelope and handed it to Rex, who held it without opening it again. Butcher promised to take the worn components to the machine shop first thing, while Diesel and Crow would prepare the next stage of inspection. For the first time the work felt like a shared project rather than a test Brian had to pass.
When Mrs. Alvarez came to collect him, Brian stopped at the door and looked back at the old FXRS. The men around it seemed larger in the evening shadows, their faces tired and their hands marked by work. He had arrived expecting them to be frightening, but now he knew that Butcher put labels on every fastener so nobody would lose a part, that Diesel could sing surprisingly well when he thought no one was listening, and that Crow had a habit of buying extra pastries for whoever was hungry.
"See you tomorrow," Butcher called.
Brian raised a hand. "You sure?"
"I'm sure. And if you show up without breakfast, I'm telling Mrs. Alvarez."
Outside, the air had cooled enough to carry the scent of cut grass from a nearby lot. Brian climbed into the passenger seat with his grandfather's notebook across his knees. He still did not know where he would sleep after Friday, or whether the hospital doctors would ever hear James speak again. But in the notebook was a photograph of his mother he had never seen, and behind him were men preparing to help with a job nobody had asked them to take on.
That night, Rex sat at his kitchen table reading Jaime's letter for the third time. He had once believed that forgiveness was a conversation in which somebody admitted being wrong and the other person accepted the apology. Now he wondered whether forgiveness sometimes meant doing the thing an absent friend had been afraid to ask. He called Millie and asked her to explain, slowly and without leaving anything out, what becoming an approved caregiver for Brian would actually require.
Thursday arrived beneath a sky the color of old aluminum. Overnight rain had left shallow pools along the gutter outside Thunderfork, and the street carried the sharp smell of damp pavement whenever a delivery van passed. Rex was at the garage before sunrise, reading the eligibility information Millie had sent him while his coffee cooled untouched. The list was longer than he had expected, and every item seemed to point toward something he could not change in twenty-four hours.
A suitable residence had to be inspected. Criminal and child-protection background checks had to be completed, references verified, and arrangements approved by the people responsible for Brian's placement. Rex had cared for a foster child before, but that certification had expired years earlier, and familiarity with the process did not allow him to skip any part of it. The possibility of temporary placement with a licensed family remained open, and Millie had already contacted two people who might be able to help.