And something in him had known for months that he'd been surviving long enough, that surviving had been right for a time, and that time was changing. "Let me talk to Lily," he said. A pause. "You're going to ask your 9-year-old about a career decision," Emily said. "Yes," he said.
"Of course you are," she said. And the way she said it was not beused. It was admiring. She understood exactly why. I'll call you tonight, he said.
He picked Lily up from school that afternoon and drove her to the ice cream place on Route 7 that she'd been going to since she was four, back when he used to have to lift her onto the counter stool. And now she climbed up herself. He let her order first. He ordered coffee because he was not going to start this conversation with ice cream because he needed his full function. Lily watched him order coffee with the expression of someone detecting a strategy.
What's wrong? She said nothing's wrong. He said, I want to talk to you about something. She took a spoonful of ice cream, waited. He told her about the job offer simply and completely the way he told her everything without softening it into child language because she'd never responded to child language, only to the real version of things.
He told her about the community development division, about what it would mean for his work, about the change. Lily listened all the way through without speaking, which was one of her qualities he found most remarkable. She could be still with information. Most adults couldn't. When he finished, she took another spoonful of ice cream.
Would you still fix things? She said in a different way, he said on a bigger scale. Would you be good at it? I think so. Do the people you'd be helping need it?
Yeah, he said. They do. She considered. Then why are you asking me? She said.
He looked at his daughter. Because your life changes too, he said. If mine changes. Lily put down her spoon. She looked at him with her mother's eyes, the weighing, deciding eyes.
And he stayed very still under the weight of that look, the way he always did because it deserved to be taken seriously. Daddy, she said, you've been fixing things for 10 years for people who could barely pay you. You never complained. You never said it wasn't enough. She paused.