The sign above my garage says CRAIG’S AUTO REPAIR in red letters. My sons, Rick and Noah, painted it when they were seven and four. Noah painted the C outside the lines, while Rick carefully painted the rest. I kept the imperfect plywood sign because it reminded me why I worked so hard.
After my wife Laura left me for wealthy car dealer Brent Harlow, she told me I was “going nowhere in life.” I lost my dealership job soon afterward, so I opened my own small repair shop. Business was difficult, but I had my boys every other weekend and every Wednesday.
Laura often threatened to withhold the boys unless I did favors for her. Then she brought me Brent’s badly damaged Mercedes and demanded it be repaired. While fixing it, I discovered a cracked booster seat and Noah’s favorite toy dinosaur, Chompy.
I checked the car’s crash data. It showed the Mercedes had been traveling 58 mph in a 35-mph zone at 1:42 a.m., with both boys buckled into the back. Rick eventually told me Brent had been drinking when he drove them, crashed into a mailbox and another car, and then fled.
