Chapter 17 - The Return to the Workbench
The winter freeze yielded just enough by the following weekend to make the unheated corners of my commercial glass-repair shop tolerable with the space heaters running at full blast. Molly and I had spent the morning organizing our inventory shelves, categorizing laminated windshield panels by vehicle make and year, and sweeping up stray shards of safety glass left over from a busy week of commercial retrofits. There was a rhythm to our work—a comforting, predictable routine where every tool had a specific place, every measurement had to be precise, and every problem could be diagnosed and corrected with patience and physical effort. My phone rested silently on the office desk, completely free of the frantic calls, legal threats, and manipulative text messages that had once poisoned our weekends. The boundary we had drawn wasn't just a physical distance; it was a psychological shield that allowed us to finally breathe.
Molly wiped her hands on a clean shop rag, walking over to the hydraulic lift where her dark blue Mustang GT sat waiting for its final mechanical upgrade. The aftermarket exhaust headers had arrived in heavy cardboard packaging three days earlier, and my daughter was eager to install them before her afternoon study group at Ohio State. She grabbed a torque wrench and a set of metric sockets, sliding smoothly beneath the chassis on her mechanic’s creeper. I walked over with a portable halogen work light, angling the brilliant beam of white light upward so she could clearly see the manifold bolts nestled tightly against the engine block. “You got enough clearance on that back oxygen sensor wire?” I asked, leaning down to check the angle. “Plenty,” Molly’s voice echoed out from beneath the car, accompanied by the metallic *clink* of a wrench engaging a stubborn nut. “The aftermarket kit actually gave us an extra half-inch of clearance compared to the stock assembly. Grandpa would have appreciated the engineering.”
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I smiled, standing upright and leaning against the fender of the car. The mention of Walter Price always brought a quiet warmth to our conversations, grounding us in the memory of a man who measured people by their character and their willingness to learn rather than their social standing or their surname. For years, Darlene had tried to rewrite that legacy, attempting to turn the family history into a strict caste system where Avery and Nathan held the royal titles while Molly and I were relegated to the economic sidelines. But Walter’s real legacy wasn't buried in the stolen trust fund or the gated manor across town; it was right here in this dusty, bustling garage, living on through a young woman who knew how to turn a wrench, read a schematic, and stand up to an intimidating room full of forty hostile relatives without flinching.
The front shop bell chimed softly, breaking the steady hum of the space heater. I turned around, expecting a delivery driver or a local commercial client dropping off a broken storefront frame. Instead, standing just inside the glass threshold, bundled up in a simple wool scarf and a plain dark coat, was Avery. She didn't march in with the entitled swagger of her past visits; she stood quietly by the doorway, her hands tucked deep into her coat pockets, looking hesitant and entirely subdued. I didn't move immediately. I kept my posture relaxed but guarded, waiting to see what brought her back to our workspace. Molly slid out from beneath the Mustang on her creeper, holding a ratchet in one hand as she sat up and looked toward the entrance.
