Nora sat at the table and looked at Rusty for a long time. "Arthur used to say that a person could be frightening and still be hurt," she said. "He also said that being hurt wasn't an excuse for frightening everybody else." She turned back to Leo. "You may explain what you remember, but you are not responsible for that motorcycle. Understand?"
"Yes, Mom."
"And you never stay in a shop alone, and you don't go near anything that's running or raised up unless one of the adults says the area is safe."
"I know. Dad said that too."
Rusty nodded. "Those are my rules as well. If we keep working on it, I'll make sure Leo's there only when you're comfortable and only where he can safely watch. I want his knowledge, not his hands in a machine."
Nora took the hundred-dollar bill out of the envelope. She turned it over once, as though the paper might reveal a condition hidden inside. "We could use this," she admitted. "I won't pretend otherwise. But I need to know my son isn't being made into a promise nobody can guarantee." Rusty told her the truth: there was a chance the motorcycle would never run again, even if every detail Leo remembered proved correct.
She relaxed a little. "Good. He deserves to know that too."
Leo looked between them, frustrated by the caution that seemed to surround every conversation in which he was taken seriously. "I don't think it's impossible," he said. "I think there's something people forgot, and Dad made sure there was a way to remember." His voice trembled just enough to make Nora reach across the table for his hand. "It feels like he's trying to tell us."
Nora squeezed his fingers. She knew he was not imagining a voice in the room; he was describing the way memories sometimes arrived so vividly that they seemed almost alive. Arthur had taught the boy to listen for changes in sound, to draw what he noticed, and to put things back where they belonged. Those lessons had survived him, and Nora had watched Leo use them to repair broken toys and explain to his schoolteacher why a model windmill refused to turn.
"Then let's see what he left you," she said. "Not because you owe anybody a miracle. Because it's worth finding out."
Rusty offered to wait while they looked through Arthur's old notebooks, but Nora told him to go home and eat dinner with his family. She promised to bring anything she found to the garage in the morning and to accompany Leo during the first part of the visit before heading to work. Rusty paused at the doorway, wishing he could think of something useful to say about the money, the motorcycle, or the burden he had put on a child. In the end he settled for a simple good night, which Nora seemed to appreciate more than another apology.
After he left, Nora and Leo sat together on the living-room floor with a battered storage box they had not opened in months. Inside were Arthur's notebooks, several photographs, a packet of receipts, and a cap that still carried a faint smell of the old workshop. Leo reached for the cap first, then stopped himself and looked at his mother. She nodded, and he set it beside him before turning to the notebooks.