Tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth.
He accidentally painted the P in REPAIR backward.
When he noticed, he cried.
So I told him we would fix it.
We painted over it in white and tried again.
If you stand close enough today, you can still see the ghost of that backward P underneath the correct one.
I could have paid someone to make a professional sign.Browse Art Prints
Metal.
Lights.
Perfect lettering.
I never wanted one.
Every morning at 6:30, when I unlock the garage, I look up at that crooked sign.
And I remember exactly why I’m there.
My name is Craig.
I’m thirty-eight.
I’ve been fixing cars since I was fourteen, when my uncle started letting me hang around his shop in Dayton, Ohio, handing him tools.
I met Laura when I was twenty-three.
She worked at a coffee shop across from the dealership where I was a mechanic.Coffee
I started buying a large black coffee every morning even though I didn’t need it.
Mostly because I liked hearing her laugh.
Laura had one of those laughs that filled an entire room.
That was the first thing I loved about her.
It took me four months to ask her out.
She said yes before I finished the sentence.
We were together eleven years.
Married nine.
We had two boys.
Rick, quiet and precise, loved building model cars and refused to accept a crooked decal.
Noah was the opposite.
Loud.
Wild.
Always running.
And he laughed exactly like his mother.
For a long time, we were happy.
I still believe that.
We had a small house with a large backyard.Plan Gardens
Sunday pancakes.
Summer trips to the lake.
A dog named Biscuit who once ate an entire birthday cake while we were singing to Rick in another room.
We didn’t have luxury.
But we had enough.
