That was the mistake.
Machines did not respect departments.
Truth rarely did either.
Isaac kept returning to Harlow.
Sometimes for weekends.
Sometimes just one evening.
He would drive south from Houston with the windows down and the San Antonio jazz station fading in and out across the highway.
The garage became Elena’s more than his.
He liked that.
Her tools appeared on the wall.
Her handwriting replaced his on customer tags.
A small plant appeared on the office windowsill.
Isaac complained.
Elena told him oxygen was beneficial.
He had no technical rebuttal.
One Thursday afternoon, almost a year after the Suburbans first arrived, Isaac returned to find Raymond’s F-150 sitting in the same bay where it had been that morning.
Raymond sat on a folding chair.
“You break it again?” Isaac asked.
Raymond looked offended.
“Your mechanic says it’s a fuel pump.”
“Elena’s not my mechanic.”
“She says the same about you.”
Isaac set down his bag.
Raymond studied him.
“You different?”
“No.”
“Houston change you?”
“No.”
“Government make you rich?”
“No.”
“You ever going to answer a question normally?”
“No.”
Raymond grinned.
“That one was normal.”
They sat together while Elena finished the truck.
Near four o’clock Dale Hutchins appeared at the fence.
He no longer shouted across.
He walked over.
“Isaac.”
“Dale.”
Dale shoved his hands into his pockets.
“I got a Duramax over there.”
“Congratulations.”
Dale sighed.
“Cylinder pressure’s strange.”
“Elena’s busy.”
“I was asking you.”
“I’m busy too.”
“You’re sitting.”
“I can be busy sitting.”
Dale stared.
Raymond started laughing.
Eventually Isaac stood.
He followed Dale across the lot.
Not because Dale had earned anything.
Not because Isaac had forgotten six years of mockery.
Because there was a broken machine on the other side of the fence.
Isaac looked at the engine.
Listened.
Asked for a pressure gauge.
Twenty minutes later he pointed to the likely problem.
Dale looked at him.
“That’s it?”
“Probably.”
“How sure?”
“Enough to test it.”
Dale nodded.
Then after an awkward pause, he said, “I was wrong about you.”
Isaac wiped his hands.
“You were wrong about what I did.”
Dale frowned.
“What’s the difference?”
“You don’t know enough about me to be wrong about me.”
Dale absorbed that.
Then nodded.
Fair.
Isaac walked back across the lot.
The sun was dropping.
Texas light turned the garage walls gold.
His phone buzzed.
Eleanor.
He answered.
“What?”
“You say hello like a normal person now that you’re government staff.”
“I’m not government staff.”
“You work for a government program.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Meeting Monday. Eight.”
“I know.”
“You’ll be there?”
“Yes.”
She hesitated.