That evening, Rachel stopped by with a casserole and found him seated at the kitchen table with forms spread around his coffee cup. Lily was in the living room building a bridge out of craft sticks, while an old movie played quietly in the background. Rachel read the company name at the top of the page and lifted her eyebrows. "This is from the woman on the highway?" she asked. Ethan nodded, already anticipating the conversation.
"She's a billionaire," Rachel said, turning the paper over. "I looked her up after you told me what happened. They put her on one of those business magazine covers where everybody stands with their arms folded." Ethan rubbed his forehead. "I don't care how much she's worth. I care whether her company pays its bills, and whether I can do the work without letting down the people already coming through my door."
"That's almost a romantic answer, coming from you," Rachel said. "Except the romance is with accounts receivable." Ethan smiled reluctantly. Then he showed her the equipment loan notice, because he had spent several days rehearsing how to talk about it and could not find a painless way. The smile left her face as she read the amount past due and the warning about further action.
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked. "Because you have your own mortgage, your own job, and your own bills." "I'm your sister, Ethan."
"I know. That's why I didn't want you worrying." Rachel put down the letter. "You don't get to protect everyone by keeping them outside the truth. Sometimes that just makes you lonelier."
He looked at the forms and said nothing for a while. Rachel was five years older and had spent most of her adult life working as a nurse, which gave her a low tolerance for men who believed endurance was the same thing as solving a problem. She had helped him through Nora's illness, the funeral, and the first years of Lily's childhood, often without being asked. What he feared most was that another request for help would turn their relationship into one more debt he could never pay.
"Apply," she said at last. "If you don't win, we find another way. If you do, you finally get paid to do what you're already good at." Ethan picked up a pen.
"It's not that simple." Rachel nodded. "Nothing worthwhile in this family ever is. Apply anyway."
The application took three evenings. Ethan had repair records going back years, but they were a mixture of accounting software, handwritten notes, and warranty folders he had never organized for an outside auditor. He gathered certificates, proof of insurance, photographs of the work area, customer references, parts invoices, and details about the vehicle types he could service without additional equipment. He was honest about the broken lift and his current capacity, although a small part of him wondered whether candor would end the evaluation before it began.