Chapter 2 - You Have No Place Here
Three weeks after his father’s funeral, Ethan arrived at Walker Auto & Repair before sunrise.
He had opened the shop every morning while his father was sick. He ordered parts, called customers, and finished jobs his father no longer had the strength to touch.
That morning, the lights were already on.
Marlene stood behind the counter wearing a dark church dress. Beside her was Cole, spotless in a pressed jacket and wearing Ethan’s father’s gold watch.
A folder rested on the counter.
Marlene pushed it toward Ethan.
“Your father left everything to me.”
Ethan looked at the pages but did not touch them.
“The original will.”
“This is a copy.”
“I want the original.”
Cole laughed.
“Still pretending you matter?”
Two customers waited near Bay Two. Neither looked at Ethan. The part-time clerk wiped the same section of counter again and again.
Marlene spoke softly.
“The estate is settled. The house, the shop, and the surrounding land belong to me. Cole will manage the business.”
Cole could not replace a fuel pump without blaming the tools.
Ethan had kept Walker Auto alive through his father’s cancer treatments. He repaired tractors after midnight and accepted eggs, tomatoes, or delayed payments from neighbors who had nowhere else to go.
But nobody defended him.
Ethan reached for the red toolbox beside Bay Three.
Cole stepped in front of it.
“That stays.”
“Dad gave it to me when I was sixteen.”
“It belongs to the shop.”
Cole grabbed one handle.
Ethan pulled once.
Cole’s boot slid through an oil patch, and he crashed against the workbench. He jumped up shouting as though Ethan had attacked him.
Marlene reached for her phone.
“Leave before I call the sheriff.”
Ethan held the toolbox against his leg.
“Call him.”
May you like
She did not.
Everybody in town knew who actually repaired the cars.
