Not because I needed people to admire it.
And certainly not because I wanted to make my neighbors jealous.
It was something I'd wanted since I was sixteen.
My father, Thomas Vale, owned a modest automotive repair business outside Denver. He was the kind of mechanic who could identify a problem by listening to an engine and the kind of man who refused to charge customers for work their vehicles didn't need.
We didn't have much money when I was growing up.
My mother worked in a public library.
My father spent long hours in the garage.
Our vacations usually involved a borrowed camper or a drive into the mountains.
But every Sunday, after the shop closed, Dad would take me to a small automotive gathering where people brought everything from restored pickup trucks to vintage European sports cars.
The first Porsche I ever saw was a silver 911.
I was sixteen.
The owner was an older man with white hair and a neatly trimmed beard.
He let me look inside.
I remember the leather seats.
The circular gauges.
The way the car seemed designed around the person driving it.
I asked my father how much it cost.
He laughed.
“More than we're spending on groceries this year.”
I stared at the car for another minute.
Then said, “One day I'm going to own one.”
Dad smiled.
“Then start saving.”
I thought he was joking.
He wasn't.
The following week, he gave me additional work at the garage.
Cleaning tools.
Organizing parts.
Helping with simple tasks under supervision.
He paid me fairly.
Then insisted I put part of every paycheck into savings.
“Dreams are fine,” he told me. “But the work you do to reach them matters more.”
I remembered that sentence for decades.
When I joined the Marshals Service, buying a sports car wasn't a priority.
I had student loans.
Rent.
Training expenses.
Then a family.
My son, Eli, was born when I was thirty-one.
By then, his mother, Hannah, and I had been married for four years.
We were happy in many ways.
But my work placed enormous pressure on the relationship.
There were late nights.
Sudden assignments.
Missed dinners.
And weeks when Hannah seemed to be managing the household alone.
We tried.
For years, we tried.
Eventually, we admitted something neither of us wanted to say.