"How long has his picture been up there?" Eli asked. Raina brought her eyes back to him. "A while," she said. The answer felt unfinished, but her voice told him the conversation had reached a boundary she was not yet willing to cross.
After breakfast she took him to the workbay. Eight motorcycles stood in a row beneath fluorescent lights, their fenders streaked with road salt and rainwater. Raina handed him a bucket and a soft brush, then demonstrated which surfaces needed gentle cleaning and which parts he was not to touch. She told him he could help with two bikes, under supervision, and afterward they would arrange a ride home.
"I can do more," Eli said immediately. "I know," she replied. "Doing more than your body can handle is not the same as doing a good job." She brought him insulated gloves from a shelf and a pair of dry socks that had somehow appeared in the office between their first and second conversation. When he tried to refuse the socks, she placed them on the bench beside him and moved on without arguing.
Eli worked with the concentration he usually reserved for machines he did not understand. He rinsed grime from places most people could not see, following the contours of a frame until he could picture what lay behind each visible part. A motorcycle engine was complicated, but it was honest in a way school paperwork never seemed to be. Every hose led somewhere, every bolt had a reason, and when something failed there was generally a physical explanation waiting to be found.
A rider sitting on an overturned crate watched him from the opposite end of the bay. He had the posture of someone who could remain still for hours without growing impatient, and his dark eyes followed the boy's work without intruding. Eventually he walked over and crouched beside the rear wheel Eli was cleaning. "Most people skip that section," the man said, pointing at the underside of the fender.
"It's the dirtiest section," Eli answered. The man made a small sound that might have been a laugh. "Boon Keller," he said. Eli gave his own name, though he knew everyone on the property had probably heard it by now. Boon examined the work for another moment, then asked whether Eli knew anything about engines.
"Some," Eli replied. "My father showed me things, but I forget the names. I remember what they do." Boon looked at him with sudden attention. "That's a different kind of remembering," he said. "It can be useful."
By the time Eli finished the second motorcycle, the fatigue he had been ignoring began showing in every movement. He caught himself pressing too hard on a chrome surface and stopped before he damaged it. Boon noticed immediately and held out a hand for the brush. "That's enough," he said, without making it sound like failure.