Chapter 22: Terms of Repair

My father knocked on my door at noon on Sunday.

It was one firm rap, and I knew it.

I opened it and he was standing on the landing in yesterday's gray suit, with his truck keys in one hand and a green ledger under his arm.

He hadn't shaved.

"I took her to her sister's," he said. "I came back and sat in the shop all night."

"Come in, Dad."

He sat at my kitchen table, and I put coffee in front of him, which he did not touch.

He opened the ledger.

It was one of the old shop books, with columns ruled in his square hand.

Down the left side he had written every first of the month, from two summers ago to last Friday.

In the right-hand column, fourteen hundred dollars, twenty-two times.

At the bottom, boxed twice, he had written: $30,800.

"That's what we took," he said. "With the last payment."

"Dad."

"I want to pay it back. All of it. I'll sell the second paint booth and the lift, and I'll sell the truck."

He laid the keys on the table between us.

"It's paid off," he said. "It's yours."

I pushed the keys back across the table.

"No."

"Corina."

"I'm not taking your truck. You need it to run a shop."

"Then tell me what you want."

I had thought about this at three in the morning.

I sat down across from him and put my hands flat on the table.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," I said, "and what I won't."

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