Lisa called me Friday night.
I was in the kitchen making bars for the next day. A double batch of scotcheroos. Because I’m a school cook, and I don’t know how to do anything without feeding people.
“Mom,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“Making scotcheroos.”
“You know what I mean.” Her voice was tired. She’d been on shift the night before. “Craig saw the sign at the Cenex.”
“It’s a free taillight check, honey. At the church.”
“Mom.”
She was quiet for a second.
“Is this to embarrass him?”
I set the spoon down in the pan. I thought about it before I answered. She deserved a real answer.
“No,” I said. “It’s to show Tyler that you can fix a thing without punishing somebody for it. If Craig’s embarrassed by that, then that’s something Craig ought to think about.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time. I could hear the TV going in the background at her house.
“He’s not a bad man, Mom.”
“I never said he was.”
“He’s scared all the time,” she said. “About Tyler. He’s been scared ever since Tyler got his license. He won’t tell me why. He just gets this look.”
“Then maybe he ought to tell somebody why.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Good night, Mom. Save me a bar.”
Saturday was the prettiest October day you could ever ask for.
Fifty-four degrees at nine in the morning. Sun out. The maple trees around the church gone red and gold. Leaves blowing across the parking lot in little skittering circles.
I wore my red flannel shirt. The one Tyler says makes me look like a lumberjack.
I brought two lawn chairs, a card table, a thermos of coffee, the scotcheroos, and that box from the parts store.
Tyler brought his toolbox. A mechanic’s creeper. A headlamp, for later. And the knee pads he wore walking beans.
We set up at the end of the lot nearest Main Street.
Hailey came at nine sharp with her mother’s clipboard. She wrote the date across the top of a sheet of notebook paper and drew a line for the first car.
“How many do you think?” she asked me.
“If we get ten, I’ll be happy,” I said.
The first car pulled in at 9:06.
It was Dale from the parts store. In his Silverado. With his brake light out since Labor Day. Grinning like a kid.
Tyler had it fixed in four minutes.
“One,” Hailey said. And wrote it down.
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