I wanted to watch, Lily said firmly. She wanted to watch. Marcus confirmed with a tone that suggested this was a negotiation he'd already lost. Viv found herself standing there when she should have been walking to her car. "I didn't know you had a daughter," she said, which was not entirely true, but was true enough.
"She's my whole operation," Marcus said. He got the bolt moving finally, and Lily issued a cheer from the hood. She talks me into letting her supervise everything. I'm still not sure how. Charm, Lily announced.
Daddy says I have a surplus. Viv laughed. Actually laughed the involuntary kind, not the polite professional acknowledgement she deployed in meetings. The sound surprised her almost as much as it seemed to surprise Marcus. She's not wrong, Marcus said, watching Viv with a careful attention she wasn't used to from people who didn't want something from her.
You seem Viv stopped, started again. You're always easy about things, even this. She gestured at the flat tire, the parking deck the Friday at 6 p.m. Does anything get to you? He sat back on his heels, turning that over, not deflecting. Actually thinking about it.
Things get to me, he said. I just try not to let them convince me that they're bigger than they are. He tightened the last bolt and stood wiping his hands on a shop rag. Lily needs me to be steady, so I practice being steady. It stops feeling like effort after a while.
Lily had slid off the hood and was now standing beside her father, examining Viv with the open assessment of someone who hasn't learned that staring is rude. Your necklace is pretty, Lily said. Is it real gold, Lily? Marcus said, "It's okay," Viv said. She crouched down, bringing herself to the girl's level.
"It is real gold. It was my grandmother's. So, it's old, very old." Lily processed this. Old things are better.
She said. Daddy says the old compass is worth more than anything new because it knows where home is. Viv glanced at Marcus who had gone slightly still. Lily, he said gently, "Sorry." Lily said, not looking sorry at all.
Viv stood. She looked at Marcus, who was turning the compass over in his hand absently, the small brass disc on his keychain she'd noticed before. He tucked it into his pocket when he saw her looking. "Have a good weekend, Miss Callaway," he said. You too, she said.
She walked to her car and sat in it for 3 minutes before starting the engine. She went home to her penthouse, 21st floor, floor to sailing windows showing the Nashville skyline in its Friday evening colors. The Cumberland catching light, the downtown towers lit up like something out of an architecture magazine. The kind of you that cost money and impressed people and provided exactly zero warmth when you poured a glass of wine and sat down alone to hear nothing but your own breathing. She had a wedding ring in the top drawer of her home office desk, not because she was sentimental about it.