Hank Sorensen eased himself down into the chair on Derek’s other side. It took him a while.
“Son,” he said. “Can I tell you something your dad told me once?”
Derek nodded.
“Around 1998, I asked Walt why he kept that coffee can on the shelf. Everybody in town knew those IOUs were never getting paid. They were just taking up space.” Hank smiled. “Walt said, ‘Hank, that can’s not a list of who owes me. It’s a list of who I belong to.’”
Derek’s shoulders started shaking.
“Your dad never thought of himself as a businessman,” Hank said. “He thought of himself as part of this town. Same as the grain elevator or the water tower. The money didn’t matter to him. People did.”
They sat there together for a long time.
Then Derek wiped his face.
“What do I do now?” he said. “I can’t fix cars. I can’t even check my own tire pressure. Dad always did it for me at Christmas.”
Hank looked at him for a long moment.
“Well,” Hank said. “My grandson Tyler’s been running the shop at the Ford dealership in Spirit Lake for six years. He’s thirty-two. Best mechanic in the county, after your dad. And he’s been sick of working for a big outfit for a long time.” Hank shrugged. “Might be he’d want to run a little garage on Grand Avenue. If the owner was willing to hire him.”
Derek turned his head and stared at the old man.
“You’d do that?”
“I wouldn’t do anything,” Hank said. “Tyler’s a grown man. But I’d tell him to come talk to you.” He paused. “Your dad taught Tyler how to change his first oil, you know. He was nine.”
Derek looked down at the coffee can.
Then he picked up the red plastic lid. He pressed it down on the can with both hands. He set it gently next to Walt’s framed photo on the table.
“I’m not selling the garage,” he said quietly.
On Monday morning, Margaret Haugen drew up the paperwork.
It took her about an hour. A formal written release, signed by me as executor of the Estate of Walter J. Becker, forgiving every debt owed to Walt by anybody in Clay County. All three hundred and eleven names, typed out on fourteen pages.
I signed it at her desk with the blue pen Walt gave me when I retired from the co-op.
Then Margaret filed it with the Clay County District Court in the courthouse across the street. The clerk, a young woman named Ashley, stamped it.
“My grandpa’s on this list,” she said, looking down at page nine. “Ronnie Schultz. He always said Walt was the reason he still had a farm.”
“Walt felt the same about him,” I said.
Over the next few weeks, Derek did a lot of things I didn’t expect.
He called his lawyer in Minneapolis, Brandon Hale, and fired him. He paid the $1,200 bill for the demand letters out of his own pocket.
He listed his townhouse in Edina for sale. It sold in June for $618,000. After paying off the mortgage, he had enough left to pay off every one of his credit cards. He sold the Tesla, too, and bought a used Ford F-150 from Kruger Implement. Dale Kruger’s son gave him the employee price.
And in July, Derek moved home to Spencer. Into Walt’s little house on Fourth Street.
He hired Tyler Sorensen to run Becker’s Garage. $68,000 a year, plus a 25 percent share of the profits. They signed the paperwork at Margaret’s office. Hank came along to watch, wearing his Sunday shirt.
Derek took a job doing IT for the Spencer hospital. Remote work, mostly. He set up a little desk in the back office of the garage, right where Walt’s metal desk used to be.
“Somebody’s got to answer the phone,” he told me.
When the estate finally closed in September, I handed Derek the deed to the garage at Margaret’s office.
He held it for a long time.
“Aunt Carol,” he said. “Will you come by Saturday morning? There’s something I want you to see.”
