He sat in his truck in the parking lot for a while after the call. He thought about 6 years. He thought about that he'd walked into this building the first time. 30 years old, recently divorced Amara, four years old and learning to read. And Richard Whitmore had shaken his hand and said he needed someone he could trust with things that mattered.
Daniel had been that person. I was still that person. The difference was that the things that mattered had shifted. He called Lauren. She picked up on the second ring.
Hey, I'm leaving Whitmore, he said. Silence. Not the surprised kind. The kind where someone is processing information they'd been half expecting and is now sitting with the reality of it arriving. The Atlanta position, she said.
Yeah. When 60 days. Another silence. Longer. Daniel.
Her voice was careful. I need you to tell me something honestly. I know what you're going to ask. Are you leaving because of me? Because of my father and me and all of this.
Are you running from it? He'd had this conversation with himself three times already that day. He knew the answer. No, he said, I'm leaving because they put something in my file that's going to make staying impossible over time anyway. And because the Atlanta job is genuinely better, and because I've been using this job as a substitute for growth for 2 years, and I know it, he paused.
You're not the reason, but you're part of the reason I was finally honest with myself about all the other reasons. She was quiet. Okay, she said. Okay, I believe you, she said. That's what okay means.
He felt something in his chest release that he hadn't realized was held. There's something else, he said. Tell me. When I leave, this gets easier for you with your father. I'm not in the building.
I'm not the fleet supervisor. He has to look at every day and calculate that pressure comes off. I know. I need to know that the pressure coming off doesn't mean he stopped, tried again. I need to know that whatever this is between us doesn't only exist because it was complicated.
That it survives the complication going away. The silence that followed was the most important one they'd had. "Honestly," she said. "Please, I don't know yet," she said. "And I think that's the right answer.