Genuinely thought about it. I'm going to tell him that you needed to clear your head after the event and I took you somewhere quiet and I brought you home safe. And if he presses, then I'll tell him the same thing again. She looked at him, searched his face for something he wasn't sure what. Whatever she was looking for, she seemed to find it.
Thank you, she said. It wasn't formal. It wasn't polished. It was just what she meant. Get some sleep, he said.
She got out of the truck. He waited until she was through the front door before he pulled around to the side of the property where Mrs. Patton met him with Amara, who had fallen asleep on the couch with her book open on her chest and woke up disoriented and grumpy and fell asleep again in the truck before they made it out of the driveway. Daniel drove home through Charlotte in the dark. I thought about what Lauren had said.
Wanting your own life isn't the same as being ungrateful for what someone gave you. He'd spent 5 years being grateful for what he still had. His job, his apartment, his daughter's health, his sobriety, his steadiness, and he'd mistaken the gratitude for contentment. It wasn't the same thing. By the time he parked and carried Amara inside and tucked her in and washed the two pie forks out of his jacket pocket, he'd accidentally taken from the diner, which told him he was more rattled than he realized it was close to midnight.
He sat at his kitchen table for a while in the quiet. I wasn't going to do anything about this. Lauren Whitmore had needed someone to talk to and he'd been the person available. Tomorrow she'd be back in the estate. He'd be back in the fleetyard.
Richard would call. Things would return to their correct positions like weights finding their level. That was what he told himself. And for about 3 days, that was exactly what happened. Richard called on Saturday morning as predicted.
His voice was cooler than usual. Not hostile, just the particular temperature of a man choosing his words carefully. Lauren got home late. Yes, sir. She wasn't feeling well after the event.
I found a quiet spot for her to get some air. A pause. Was she upset? Daniel measured his words the way he measured a route, looking for the straightest line without unnecessary detours. She seemed tired, he said.
Long night. Another pause. Longer this time. I appreciate you looking after her, Richard said finally. She can be.
She takes after her mother sometimes. Needs space. Understood. Let's keep this between us. Of course, sir.
He hung up and sat there with the phone in his hand, aware that he had just navigated the first checkpoint, that there would be others. What he didn't know, what he couldn't have guessed on that Saturday morning was that Lauren Whitmore was sitting in her room on the other side of Charlotte, looking at her phone and typing a text to a number she'd gotten from the company directory. It said, "I left my scarf in your truck. It's dark blue. Could I come by the fleet yard Monday to pick it up? " He read it.