Just the call. You don't have to tell me, he said.
I know I don't. She paused.
The board is removing me from my own company. constructive dismissal they're calling it, which is a legal term for they found a way to make me want to leave. She paused again.
I built that company for 11 years. I started it in my second bedroom with a laptop and a phone and a daughter who didn't sleep through the night.
She stopped. Daniel didn't say I'm sorry.
He'd learned that I'm sorry was sometimes just something people said to close a door. Instead, he said, "And Lily."
Catherine turned her head. What about Lily?
Does she know? A beat.
No. She's going to notice something's wrong.
He said, "She already does. She's been watching you through the kitchen window for the last hour."
Catherine turned and looked at the house. In the kitchen window, visible for just a moment was the shape of Lily.
Not spying, just present. Near.
The way children are near when they sense their parent needs them and haven't been taught yet that adults call that space something unwelcome. Catherine's jaw tightened.
But her eyes did something different. Something cracked slightly the way ice cracks in spring.
Not breaking, just opening. She doesn't need to worry about this, Catherine said.
She already is. Daniel said.
Worrying alone is harder. Catherine looked at him.
Do you speak from experience? He met her eyes.
Every day, he said. Noah arrived at 4:10 backpack dragging cheeks flushed from walking six blocks faster than necessary.
He stopped at the gate, assessed the situation with a 9-year-old's complete confidence, and announced, "Dad, that's galvanized mesh, the new kind. Good choice."
"Get in the gate," Daniel said, "I know. I know.
Stay on the driveway. Noah stepped inside, looked at the progress, nodded with the authority of someone who had watched this work done enough times to have opinions about it.
You set three footings today. Two and a half, Daniel said.
Last one needs more time. You should have started earlier.
I started at 8. Earlier than 8.
Daniel looked at his son. Inside that statement is a lesson you will understand when you have your own business.
Noah considered this, decided it was probably true, and let it go. Catherine appeared in the doorway.
She looked at Noah the way people sometimes look at children of single fathers with a specific and unguarded kind of tenderness, seeing both the child and the shape of everything that made the child. "You must be Noah," she said.
Yes, ma'am. Noah said with a politeness that Daniel had worked on.
Your fence was already struggling before the truck hit it. Dad says things that look solid sometimes aren't.