She talked to you about this, Richard said quietly. Not accusing, just absorbing.
She talks to people who listen, Daniel said. The call sat in that for a moment.
She used to talk to me. Richard said before.
He didn't say before what he didn't need to. She probably still would, Daniel said, if the conversation wasn't coming from an attorney's office.
He heard Richard breathe in and out. The sound of a man looking at something he didn't fully want to see.
I'll think about it, Richard said. All right, Daniel said.
"The fence," Richard said suddenly. "The work you did...
I drove past it." A pause.
"It's good work." Thank you, Daniel said.
Richard hung up. Daniel sat for a moment.
He thought about what it costs a person to call someone they've already decided to dislike and say the thing they actually mean. He thought it probably cost more than the call looked like from the outside.
He got out of the truck and went to work. Tuesday arrived with Lily's nerves visible from across the room.
She was dressed carefully. her presentation notes printed and held in a folder that she'd already reorganized twice by the time Daniel and Noah came through the gate at 6:50. Noah was in his good shoes, which he'd put on without being asked, which Daniel noted and stored quietly.
"You're early," Lily said.
"Always," Noah said.
"The fractions thing," Lily started.
"You were wrong about sevens," Noah said. "I've had a week to confirm it.
Multiple sources. I know, Lily said.
I was going to say you were right. Noah blinked.
Oh. A pause.
Okay. Don't make a thing of it, Lily said.
I'm not making a thing. You're doing the face.
I don't have a face. You have a face?
Daniel said. Both children looked at him.
You do? He told Noah.
It's a good face. Put it away for now.
Noah put it away.
Catherine was in the kitchen and she turned when they came in and there was a moment, brief, natural, unperformed, where she and Daniel looked at each other across the room and the look said something that neither of them was ready to say out loud, but both of them understood.
Something like this is a good thing, whatever this is. Dinner was pasta and garlic bread and a salad that Lily had made herself slightly overdressed because she'd been nervous and put the vinaigrette in twice.
Noah ate three helpings without mentioning the dressing. Daniel noticed and felt something swell in his chest that was specifically pride.