He came through the front door without knocking, which he'd started doing two weeks ago without either of them deciding that was now the arrangement. He looked at the kitchen, his daughter at one end of the table. Marcus' daughters on either side of her working on what appeared to be a drawing project that had migrated from the living room, and something moved across his face that he covered quickly. "You're late," Marcus said. "I'm exactly on time," Robert said.
"Lunch was at noon. It's 3 minutes past noon. " He sat down. That's on time. Olivia looked at her father. You want coffee or are you going to stand on principal?
Both, Robert said. Marcus poured him a cup. They ate lunch together, the five of them. And it was loud in the way that a table with two young children is always loud with conversations that started and didn't finish and questions that came from nowhere and the general productive chaos of people who have decided without formally deciding that they are comfortable with each other. Marcus sat at the head of his own table and looked at these people in his kitchen and felt something so unfamiliar.
It took him a few seconds to identify it. He felt full. Not from the food, just full. He almost missed what Robert said next because he was sitting with that feeling. Marcus.
Robert's voice has a different register. Quieter. The way it got when he was about to say something that mattered. Marcus looked at him. There's something I need to tell you, Robert said.
Both of you. He glanced at Olivia, who had gone still in the way she did when her father's tone shifted. There's a reason I suggested you two meet. Beat on the obvious. Olivia set her fork down.
Dad, she said, "Careful. Let me say it. " Robert said. He looked at Marcus. You told me once that you'd been out of work since the company folded, that you're behind on this place, that you've been sending applications and not getting back what you need. Robert, I made some calls.
Robert said last week there's a man named Gerald Patton. He runs a construction and renovation company out of Decatur. Been in business 30 years. He's looking to bring on a site supervisor with real experience. Not somebody fresh out of trade school.
Marcus went very still. He was my sergeant. Robert continued. Vietnam. I haven't spoken to him in about 18 years.
I called him last Tuesday. He paused. He wants to meet you. The kitchen was quiet except for Zoe who had not noticed the shift in the room and was explaining to Nadia in great detail why ha drawing of a horse looked like a horse and not like what Nadia said it looked like. Marcus looked at Robert across the table.
You called someone you hadn't spoken to in 18 years. Marcus said for me I I called an old friend who I should have called a long time ago anyway. Robert said. The fact that it benefits you is a side effect. Olivia was watching her father with an expression Marcus couldn't entirely read.