Forget it all." He had no money for lawyers.
He had nothing in this world but this shop, his only inheritance, the last place that still held his mother's warmth. On the fourth night, he actually did it.
He picked up his screwdriver set, sat down, and placed the bit against the first bolt of the knee joint. And then his eyes fell on the wooden chair in the corner of the shop.
He suddenly remembered an evening from long ago, his mother sitting in that very chair, watching him draw the first sketches in the leather notebook. He'd been discouraged that day.
He crumpled a page and threw it toward the wastebasket. "I'm drawing garbage.
I fix cars. Mom, what business do I have building things for people?"
His mother had picked the page up, smoothed it flat, and set it back on the desk. She said, "Boon, I stood behind a register my whole life, and people looked at me like I was part of the counting machine.
But I knew what I was. Don't you ever let anyone else decide what you are.
Whatever your hands make, that's what you are."
Boon's hand stopped on the bolt. He sat motionless for a long time in the dark shop, only the desk lamp casting light on the half-unbolted brace.
Then he turned that bolt in the tightening direction. He wasn't taking it apart anymore.
He was doing the opposite. All through the following week, Boon worked late into every night perfecting the braces.
Not for the next fitting, because there might never be a next fitting, but simply because this was the work the past had left undone, and this time he was going to finish it. He fine-tuned every joint from memory of Piper's gait.
He fixed the weakness that had caused her fall by adding a stabilizing lock at the hip, something that would catch her if she ever pivoted too sharply again. He wrote a 20-page manual in his clumsy handwriting explaining every component, every adjustment, and every warning sign to watch for, so that if these braces ever found their way to Piper, she wouldn't need him anymore.
She would be self-sufficient. That was the final gift.
When it was finished, he packed the braces and the manual into a wooden crate, intending to mail it to the Larkin estate and let heaven decide the rest. He never needed to mail it, because on Saturday afternoon, the black SUV returned to the shop for the third time.
But this time, the first person to step out was not Genevieve, and it was not Piper. It was a man with impeccably combed silver hair, a tailored gray suit, and a television smile.
Dr. Nathaniel Crane had come in person at the invitation of Mrs.
Larkin, who wanted to end this matter in a civilized fashion with an expert present as witness. Genevieve stepped out after him, her face carved from stone.
And last came Piper, brought along by her mother so the girl could see with her own eyes the difference between science and tinkering. Crane wanted a public execution.
He would dissect the homemade braces in front of mother and daughter, demonstrate exactly how dangerous they were, and bury this threat forever. What he didn't know was that he had just walked into the one place on earth where every coat of glossy paint is worthless.
A machine shop. Where the only thing that gets a vote is what works and what doesn't.
"Mr. Halloway," Crane began, his voice warm and indulgent as if speaking to a child.
"No one doubts your good intentions, but good intentions are no substitute for 30 years of research."