Dark slacks, a clean button-down, the jacket he wore to Maya's school presentations. Not a suit. He was not pretending to be something he wasn't, but not the work uniform either. Something in between. Something that was actually him.
Maya was awake when he came out of his room, which was unusual for 6:15 on a Monday. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal, fully dressed for school, and she looked at him when he walked in with the specific evaluating attention she had inherited from nobody. It was entirely her own. "You look good," she said. "Don't make a thing of it.
I'm not making a thing. I'm making an observation. " She ate a spoonful of cereal. You ironed that shirt. The shirt needed ironing. You never iron shirts, Maya.
I'm just saying. She was almost smiling. Almost. She kept it just on the near side of a smile the way she did when she was enjoying something, but didn't want him to know how much. What time is the meeting?
9. And you're leaving at what time? 7:30. She nodded. Did the math.
You're giving yourself 90 minutes for a 30inut drive. Traffic. Dad, it's not traffic. He poured himself coffee and stood at the counter with his back to her for a moment and thought about the particular experience of being known completely by a 12year-old. It's an important meeting, he said.
I know, she said. And the way she said it simple, certain without a trace of teasing now told him she understood more than she was saying. That she had been thinking about this since Thursday dinner. That the question he'd asked her, "Would that scare you? " had not been forgotten. That she had her own feelings about what was happening to her father and had chosen with the wisdom of a child who has learned to push and when to let something unfold, to simply be present for it.
He turned around. She was looking at him. "You're going to be great," she said. "Go. " He set his coffee cup down, crossed to the table, put his hand briefly on top of her head. The gesture she usually batted away and she let him.
Just this once, she let him. He picked up his keys. He left at 7:30. He arrived at the Hayes Global Building at 7:58 a.m. He sat in the parking structure for 41 minutes.