After her marriage ended, Marissa Keene moved with her son, Easton, to Redbrook, Minnesota.
She hoped a quieter neighborhood might give them both room to recover.
Easton found noise especially difficult.
Crowded classrooms, sudden shouting, alarms, and overlapping voices could overwhelm him quickly. School had become exhausting, and Marissa had grown accustomed to entering meetings already prepared to defend a child whom other people too often misunderstood.
Then they met Silas Mercer.
He lived next door.
He was heavily tattooed, wore an old leather vest, and owned a motorcycle loud enough that Marissa initially wondered whether moving beside him had been a terrible mistake.
Easton thought otherwise.
He began standing near their fence and watching Silas work in his open garage.
Silas noticed.
But he never demanded conversation.
He simply continued repairing engines.
One afternoon, he placed a small pair of blue work gloves on the edge of his workbench.
“For you, if you want them.”
Easton took them.
That was how their friendship began.