He said, "Not enough alone," she said. But James knows people.
He said he'd make three calls tonight. The kind of calls that happen before anyone's official position is public.
She paused. He also said something else.
He said, "Catherine, the people who want to take this from you are counting on you being too tired to fight. Don't be tired yet."
"Good man," Daniel said.
"He's 73 years old." She said, "He started his first company at 40.
He said he'd been watching me for 11 years and that this board move was the most predictable thing he'd ever seen. And he was embarrassed it had taken him this long to say so out loud.
Her voice did something complicated on the last sentence. I almost cried in the meeting.
Did you? No.
Would it have been the end of the world if you had a pause? Probably not, she said.
But old habits. He understood old habits.
He had a collection of them himself. Most of them built in hospital corridors and insurance offices and school pickup lines where falling apart wasn't available as an option.
Lily's been asking about Noah, Catherine said, shifting. He's been asking about her fractions argument, Daniel said.
I think he's still bothered that he might have been wrong. He wasn't wrong, Catherine said.
Lily admitted it. She just took 4 days to do it.
She's her mother's daughter, he said. A silence, not uncomfortable.
The kind that had started to feel over the past week like its own form of conversation. Will you come Tuesday?
She said, not for work. There's nothing to fix.
A pause. Lily has a school presentation, history project.
She's been practicing her opening, and I I think she'd want you there. and Noah. She'd want Noah to be difficult about the fractions.
Daniel was quiet for a moment. "What time?" he said.
"Seven," she said.
"Dinner first, if that's all right."
"That's all right," he said. She said good night.
He sat down his phone and stood at the counter for a while longer than he needed to, looking at nothing in particular, aware of something expanding quietly in his chest that he hadn't made room for in a long time and wasn't sure yet what to do with, he went to bed.
He slept better than he had in months. Wednesday, the contractor who owed him $400 paid him, not voluntarily.
Daniel had sent a third notice formal this time with the specific language his attorney friend had advised and the check arrived via same-day mail with no note, just the check. Daniel deposited it, took Noah out for burgers, and didn't make a speech about it because some victories were their own complete thing and didn't need narration.
Thursday, he got a call from a property manager in Whitfield Hollow who had heard about the fence job from a neighbor, wooden gate and two sections of privacy fence. Bigger job, better money.
He gave her a quote the same way he always did. Honest, detailed, no padding.
She hired him on the spot. He called Marcus to tell him the referral chain was working.