“Because you never asked.”
“That’s not fair.”
“What did you think I did all day?”
“Fix toilets.”
Daniel slowly turned.
“I regret raising you.”
Lily laughed.
He took out milk.
She followed him.
“Were you important?”
“I’m still important.”
“You know what I mean.”
Daniel poured two glasses.
“Everybody there is important to somebody.”
Lily frowned.
“That sounds like a dad answer.”
“It is.”
“Was the company tiny?”
“Yes.”
“How tiny?”
“Your school cafeteria is bigger than the first building.”
She loved that.
Over the next month, she asked for every story.
The leaking roof.
The prototype shipment.
Samuel Reed sleeping beneath his desk.
The winter heater.
Daniel paying for parts.
One evening she asked:
“Why didn’t you become boss?”
Daniel thought.
“I became your dad.”
“You could be both.”
“Some people are.”
“Why weren’t you?”
“Because the kind of boss job I was offered meant traveling.”
“And Mom died.”
“Yes.”
Lily became quiet.
“Did you give it up because of me?”
Daniel immediately shook his head.
“No.”
“I chose something because of you.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Giving something up means I wish I had kept it.”
“I don’t.”
Lily looked at him.
“You never wanted to be boss?”
“Some days.”
“What days?”
“When the boss annoys me.”
She laughed.
Samuel Reed returned to Alderon three months after the incident.
Not because of Daniel.
At least that was what he claimed.
Samuel was seventy-two.
Retired.
Still held a board seat.
Walked with a cane after hip surgery.
He entered Building Operations without warning.
Daniel looked up from a wiring diagram.
“You lost?”
Samuel smiled.
“You got old.”
“So did you.”
“Mine looks distinguished.”
“Yours looks expensive.”
They hugged.
Samuel had heard the story.
Of course.
Everybody had.
He looked at Daniel’s badge.
“Still 001.”
“They tried to fire it.”
Samuel laughed.
Then stopped.
“I heard.”
Daniel returned to his diagram.
Samuel sat.
“You all right?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
Daniel paused.
“Mostly.”
“What part isn’t?”
Daniel thought.
“The room.”
“What room?”
“The lobby.”
He set down his pencil.
“I’ve been embarrassed before.”
“I’ve been wrong before.”
“I’ve had supervisors talk down to me.”
“But there was something about forty people seeing it.”
Samuel nodded.
“Hard to put away?”
“Some mornings.”
That was the first time Daniel admitted it.
The incident had affected him more than he allowed Lily to see.
For a few weeks, every time Victoria entered a room, Daniel’s body tensed before his mind caught up.
When someone in a suit asked what he was doing near an executive space, he heard:
You’re done.
He hated that.
Not because he feared Victoria now.
Because humiliation had memory.
Samuel said:
“You should tell her.”
“I don’t want to punish her.”
“That isn’t punishment.”
Daniel looked at him.
“You used to hate feedback.”
Samuel smiled.