Chapter 2 - The Boy with the Cardboard Sign
Near the cart corral sat a young man in a gray hoodie, backpack wedged under his knees. He looked no older than twenty. A piece of cardboard leaned against his shin: WILL WORK. JUST NEED A CHANCE.
Eleanor stopped walking.
"Hungry?"
He nodded, careful, like the question might be a trick.
She held out the pie.
He looked at the box, then at her face. "The whole thing?"
"The whole thing."
A surprised laugh got out of him before he could stop it.
Eleanor noticed the black grease worked deep under his fingernails. "You know engines?"
"My dad did. I worked next to him before he passed."
She nodded toward her aging Oldsmobile at the end of the row. "Want to change your life?"
His name was Caleb Foster, nineteen. He'd been sleeping behind a laundromat for six weeks, ever since he aged out of foster care and got let go from a warehouse job. Eleanor drove him across town to Whitfield Auto Repair, the shop her late husband had built from a single bay and that Grant now ran.
She hadn't set foot there in months.
May you like
The first thing she saw was the new sign over the door: GRANT WHITFIELD AUTOMOTIVE.
The second thing she saw was that Walter's name was gone.
