Inside the dish towel was an old combination wrench, the chrome worn down to dull steel, and a folded piece of paper gone yellow at the creases. Gus picked up the wrench like it might break. Then he unfolded the paper, and his hands started to shake.

“I haven’t seen this in fifty years,” he said quietly. I leaned closer. It was a bill of sale, handwritten, for the garage itself. The price was one dollar. At the bottom, in faded ink, was a single condition, and two signatures. One was Gus’s. The other was my mother’s. Gus looked up at her with wet eyes, then pressed the intercom button on his desk. “Braden,” he said, in a voice I’d never want aimed at me. “Get in here. Now.”