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THE directions Clay had given her and went to a hole-in-the-wall garage on the outskirts of Fortuna. She parked Clay’s big SUV very carefully, away from the front of the garage, conscious that if she put one scratch on it, it would take forever to save enough to get it fixed.
    Before she even got to the opened doors of the garage a man was coming toward her. He was dressed in a gray, grease-stained jumpsuit, wiping his hands on a red rag. He also had grease on his face—a streak here and there—and he wore a grin. “You must be Dory.”
    She stopped dead in her tracks. “How’d you know?”
    He nodded toward the SUV. “You’re driving Clay’s car.”
    “Oh. Of course. Well, then…” She cleared her throat.
    The man held out his hand and said, “I’m Stan, by the way.”
    “Oh, nice to meet you,” Dory said as she shook his hand. “Did you figure out what was wrong with my truck?”
    “Yup. Transmission, like Clay thought. I put in a rebuilt one. I usually recommend a new one, but that Pathfinder’s getting on in years and has almost two hundred thousand miles on it. She’s still in good shape—you take good care of her—but sooner or later those miles are gonna catch up with you. Might want to think forward a little.”
    “Um, yeah. I’ll think forward. What am I gonna owe you?”
    “I’ll have to write it up—we’re not quite done in there yet. It should be ready by morning. I’ll stay a little late if I have to. When you pick Clay up from work in the morning, you can swing by here and pick her up. Anyway, I’m just charging you for the part, so it’s probably gonna be around fourteen hundred dollars….”
    She gasped and her hand went to her heart.
    “That’s discounted, kiddo,” Stan said. “And no labor.” It took hera minute to catch her breath. And while she was trying to get a grip, he said, “Three-year warranty. Which, by the way, is a hell of a deal.”
    She let out a breath. “I… ah… I…”
    “There’s no need to stress. You can pay me a little something every month if you need to,” he said.
    She tilted her head. “Why would you do that?”
    He shrugged. “Clay asked me to. Said you were a next-door neighbor, a good friend, a single mom who didn’t have a lot of money to throw around.”
    “And that’s all he has to say to get a deal?”
    “Well, Clay would do it for me. Plus he said something about you being a volunteer who helped out single moms who were down on their luck.”
    “Oh. That makes a difference?”
    “Lots of people, like me and Clay, have family members who fall in that category.”
    “Is that so? Like…”
    “Me and Clay both have sisters who are single moms.” Stan chuckled. “Clay has sisters coming out his ears, but one is divorced. I hear support payments are spotty at best and she worries about calling in sick to her job if the kids need her. He looks out for her, and does his share of babysitting on his days off.” The mechanic shrugged. “The whole family looks out for her, matter of fact. I have just the one sister, but she’d have a hard time getting by without me, my wife and our folks.”
    For just a second Dory was reminded she had no family and there were too many like her, with either no family or a family that couldn’t or wouldn’t help. “You both have sisters who are single moms?”
    He made a face. “Who doesn’t have a sister—or at least know someone—who’s a single mom? The point being, it’s relatively easy for our sisters, since they have us. And it’s still hard for them, raising the kids alone, with little, if any, support from the fathers. They’re weekend dads at best. When you get down to it, even the single moms in the greatest shape have it rough. I can’t even imagine how hard it is for women without parents, brothers and sisters willing to help out.”
    She just nodded, but she was thinking that maybe she’d tell Clay her story someday, and perhaps enlist his support for their resource