He believed a mechanic should never sell a repair a vehicle didn't need. He never charged elderly customers extra because they didn't understand engines, and he had a habit of fixing neighborhood children's bicycles without taking payment.
Dad had a crooked smile, enormous hands, and a way of explaining complicated machinery that made a twelve-year-old kid feel like an engineer.
I spent most of my childhood following him through the garage.
He taught me to identify engine noises before I could drive, taught me how to keep a service log, and taught me that a good repair wasn't finished until somebody could safely take the vehicle home.
He also taught me that running an honest business wasn't always the easiest way to become wealthy.
“Rich is nice,” he'd tell me. “But sleeping at night is better.”
When he died six years earlier, I took over the garage.
By then, it had survived several economic downturns, two recessions, and more than a few disastrous business decisions.
I was determined to keep it operating.
Then my wife died.
Her name was Emily.
She was thirty-five when a sudden medical emergency took her from us, leaving me with a four-year-old daughter who couldn't understand why Mommy wasn't coming home.
Maya was seven now.
She had my brown hair, Emily's bright blue eyes, and a talent for asking difficult questions at exactly the wrong moment.
She loved astronomy, horses, and building ridiculous inventions out of LEGO bricks.
She also believed I could fix absolutely anything.
Cars.
Broken lamps.
The neighbor's lawn mower.
The little plastic arm on her favorite robot.
Once, when she found me sitting alone in the kitchen after midnight, she climbed onto my lap and asked whether I could fix sadness.
I told her I didn't know how.
She thought about that.
Then she wrapped her arms around my neck.
“Maybe hugs are the tools.”
I cried harder than I had in months.
Since then, I'd done my best to be both parents.
I learned to braid hair, prepare school lunches, remember permission slips, and smile through the school events where every other child seemed to have two parents cheering from the audience.
Some days I managed well.
Other days, I forgot to buy milk and considered that a personal failure.
But Maya never complained about our small house or my old truck.
She didn't care that my hands were always stained with grease.
She cared whether I listened when she explained a new spaceship design and whether I remembered to read a story before bed.