“That’s my wife’s writing,” he said.

Her name had been Miriam.

Inside was a letter she had written near the end of her illness, when she suspected Walter would have a hard time finding reasons to get out of bed after she was gone.

The letter was short.

She told him she loved the way he repaired things people had written off.

She remembered the children’s bikes he used to fix for the neighborhood when money was scarce.

Most of all, she asked him not to spend the rest of his life alone in a garage full of silent machines.