“Get out.”
I stared.
“What?”
He looked directly at me.
“You want to be an adult? Walk.”
For a moment, I thought he was bluffing.
I looked toward Mom.
She was staring at her phone.
“Mom?”
She didn’t answer.
Dad repeated himself.
“Get out, Gage.”
I opened the door.
Stepped onto the concrete.
Then turned back.
My wallet was still in the center console.
I’d taken it out earlier because it was uncomfortable in my pocket.
I started to reach for it.
But Dad had already closed his window and shifted the truck into drive.
For a moment, I stood frozen.
Then he leaned toward the open passenger-side window.
“You’ll call before midnight.”
The truck pulled away.
I watched the taillights move toward the interstate.
Then disappear.
For several seconds, I couldn’t understand what had happened.
I was eighteen.
I’d graduated high school two weeks earlier.
I had money I’d earned.
A business I’d built.
And parents who had just left me roughly ninety miles from home because I wouldn’t hand over my savings.
I stood beside the air pump until a car pulled into the next space.
Then I walked toward the convenience store.
Inside, the lights were painfully bright.
A clerk stood behind the counter reading something on his phone.
I bought a sandwich and a bottle of water.
I paid using the digital payment card on my phone.
Then I checked the battery.
Eight percent.
I bought a charging cable.
Walked next door to the laundromat.
And sat in a blue plastic chair beneath the change machine.
The place smelled of detergent and warm cotton.
A few dryers were still running.
There were two long folding tables, a row of washing machines, and a television mounted near the ceiling.
I found an outlet.
Plugged in my phone.
Then sat there staring at the floor.
At eleven twenty, a message arrived from Mom.
“WHERE IS THE MONEY?”
Four words.
All capitals.
No question about whether I was safe.
No offer to come back.
No concern about where I would sleep.
She’d checked the old account and discovered that most of the money was gone.
I looked at the message for a long time.
Then took a screenshot of my new account information, carefully concealing the sensitive details while showing that the money was in an account under my control.
I sent it.
Mom didn’t reply immediately.
Dad called twenty minutes later.
I watched the phone ring.
Then declined the call.
He called again.
Then several more times after midnight.
I didn’t answer.
I was frightened.
And angry.
And more hurt than I wanted to admit.
But I knew that if I returned home that night, the conversation would begin exactly where it had ended.
With my parents demanding the savings.
And me being expected to apologize for protecting them.
Sometime after two, I fell asleep in the plastic chair.
I woke when somebody opened the back door shortly after dawn.
A small elderly woman entered carrying a coffee can full of quarters.
She stopped when she saw me.
For a moment, we stared at each other.
Then she asked.
“Are you waiting for laundry, or did something happen?”
I swallowed.
“Something happened, ma’am.”
She studied me.
Then set down the coffee can.
“Well, that explains the face.”
I almost smiled.
She walked into a back room.
A few minutes later, the smell of coffee filled the laundromat.
She returned with two mugs.
Handed one to me.
Then sat across from me at the folding table.
Her name was Beatrice Holgren.
Everybody called her Bee.
She and her husband Leroy had owned the laundromat for forty-one years.
Leroy passed away four years earlier.
Bee still opened the place every morning before sunrise because that was what they’d always done.
She listened while I told her what happened.
The engagement party.
The money.
The gas station.
The truck driving away.
When I finished, Bee stirred her coffee.
“Fifteen thousand dollars?”
I nodded.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“From an eighteen-year-old?”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the washers.
Then back at me.
“And they left you here?”
I managed a small smile.
“Technically, they left me next door.”
Bee gave a short laugh.
Then shook her head.
For a while, we sat quietly.
Finally, she pointed toward dryer number six.
Its control knob was held in place with gray tape.
“That thing’s been giving me trouble for months.”
I looked toward it.
She continued.
“Leroy would’ve known how to fix it.”
I stood and examined the knob.
The machine itself was working, but the little plastic grip had cracked.
I looked toward Bee.
“I could probably make a replacement.”
She frowned.
“How?”
I took out my phone.
Opened my online store.
Showed her photographs of the parts I made.
She scrolled carefully.
Read several customer reviews.
Then looked toward me.
“You make all these?”
I nodded.
“Yes, ma’am.”
For a moment, she seemed impressed.
Then she said something I’ll never forget.
“Leroy would’ve liked you.”
She took another sip of coffee.
Then stood.
“Come upstairs.”
Above the laundromat was a small office Leroy used for bookkeeping.
There was a desk.
A narrow cot.
A hot plate.
A bathroom with a shower.
And one window that stuck whenever the weather became humid.
Bee opened the door.
“Nobody’s using it.”
I looked around.
Then toward her.
“What is this?”
“A place to stay.”
I stared.
“Ma’am, you don’t know me.”
She folded her arms.
“I know you’ve got a business. I know you want to work. And I’ve got machines that need attention.”
She pointed toward the desk.
“Help me keep this place running, and we’ll talk about rent once you’ve settled in.”
For several seconds, I couldn’t speak.
Then I asked.
“Are you sure?”
Bee nodded.
“Positive.”
She turned toward the stairs.
“Now come down and eat something. You look like you haven’t had a proper breakfast.”
I stood alone in the little office.
For a moment, I looked toward the cot.
Then the window.
Then the empty desk.
My parents had left me at a gas station because I refused to hand over money I’d earned.
A woman who’d known me for less than two hours was offering me a place to sleep because she believed I could do useful work.
I sat on the cot.
And cried.
Not loudly.
Just enough to let some of the fear leave my body.
Then I washed my face and went downstairs.
That was the beginning of my life in Cozad.