They spoke for forty minutes about ordinary things. Sully told him a story about Ox trying to assemble a grill without reading the directions. Leo told Sully that he had bought groceries and forgotten to buy a can opener, then discovered three cans in the cupboard that required one. Sully offered to bring him a spare, and Leo said he could manage. "I know you can," Sully replied. "I was offering, not testing."
Leo sat on the edge of his new bed after the call and looked at the lighter on the nightstand. He did not use it; he liked the weight and the story more than the flame it could produce. Beside it sat Patrick's photograph, now protected inside a simple frame Rosa had given him. The two objects represented the first and second parts of his life, separated by years of places where he had been expected to stay quiet. For the first time, he could imagine adding things to the shelf without worrying how easily he might have to pack them again.
School was harder than mechanical work in ways Leo had not anticipated. He could spend hours diagnosing a stubborn machine and remain focused, but a crowded classroom sometimes made him watch the door instead of the board. He was embarrassed by gaps in his formal education, especially when a younger student could answer a question he had never been taught to recognize. Mr. Desmond continued working with him and insisted that learning late was not the same as learning badly. Leo did not entirely believe that, but he kept showing up.
He eventually completed the requirements for his diploma through an alternative program. At the small ceremony, he wore a borrowed gown over clean jeans and looked for Sully in the audience. Sully was there beside Rosa and Ox, his enormous shoulders squeezed into a folding chair that seemed designed to test him. They did not shout or whistle when Leo crossed the stage. They stood and applauded until the other families looked toward them and smiled.
The diploma was a thin piece of paper that weighed almost nothing in Leo's hands. He had held heavier things every day in the shop, but nothing had cost him more hours of fighting the impulse to disappear. After the ceremony, he took a photograph with Rosa and another with Sully standing beside him. In the second picture, Sully looked gruff and uncomfortable while Leo smiled so broadly that his eyes nearly disappeared. Leo later framed that picture too.
Hank's criminal trial began several months after Leo turned eighteen. By then Leo was older than he had been when the abuse occurred, but the courtroom made him feel young again. Hank sat at the defense table in a dark suit, his attorney beside him, and watched witnesses with the same impatience he used to display at the kitchen table. The proceedings took days, with documents and testimony about financial exploitation, abusive discipline, and the experiences of children who had lived in the home.