She glanced at him sideways. What about you? What about me? Do you talk to anyone? He walked for a moment without answering.
The sand shifted under his feet. I talked to a grief counselor for 6 months after Diane. The church had a program. It helped. I think it gave me language for things I couldn't name.
And after the six months, life happened. He shrugged one shoulder. Jaylen needed things. Work needed things. There's a particular point where you get functional enough that the urgency fades and then it just doesn't happen again.
Functional, she repeated like she was testing the weight of the word. That's a low bar. It was the only bar. Are available. She stopped walking.
He stopped too. A half step later and turned back to look at her. She was looking at him with that direct unguarded expression. She had the one that still caught him offguard because he was used to people who looked at him and saw the category first and the man somewhere much further down the list. What would it look like?
She said if the bar was higher, he didn't answer immediately. He looked out at the water because the question required that kind of space. What would it look like? He had not asked himself that question in so long that the asking of it felt almost foreign, like a language he'd once spoken fluently and let go unused until the grammar had started to slip. I don't know, he said.
I think I stopped imagining it. That's what I thought, she said quietly. Not cruy. Just the way you confirm a diagnosis you were hoping was wrong. She started walking again.
He fell into step beside her. "Marcus," she said. "Yeah, I want to tell you something and I need you to hear it without deflecting. " "Okay, you are one of the most genuinely intelligent people I've sat across from in years, and I sit across from extremely credentialed, extremely expensive people for a living. " She kept her eyes forward, her voice steady. The way you think, the way you hear a problem and find the place where it actually breaks, that's not a maintenance skill. That's a systems level mind.
You know that, right? He didn't say anything, Marcus. I heard you. You went quiet in the way that means you're about to thank me and change the subject. He almost smiled.
I was going to say you've been talking to too many consultants. I am a consultant and I know what I'm talking about. She glanced at him. Someone told you along the way that what you do is a smaller thing than what they do. I'm telling you they were wrong.