She pushed the laptop back, change your contracts. Net 15. He changed his contracts the next morning. The following month felt materially different. Not because the work changed, but because the rhythm of it changed, and the false stress she had named went from a constant low hum to something intermittent and manageable.
He told Marcus about it on Sunday over the game. Marcus said, "Man, I have been telling you to find a business-minded woman for years." Darius said, "That is not what happened. That is exactly what happened. I found a person I care about who also happens to understand accounting."
Marcus said, "She understands accounting at 10:00 p.m. On a Thursday because she wanted to help you." Marcus pointed at him with his beer. "That's a woman who's in it. You understand that, right?
That's not casual. Darius was quiet for a moment. I know, do you? Because you spent the better part of a year treating it like it might disappear and being very surprised when it didn't. I was being careful.
You were being scared and calling it careful. Marcus settled back into the couch. There's a difference. You know the difference now. He did know the difference now.
That was the thing. He had learned it the way you learn things that matter, not from being told once, but from living through enough moments, where the difference was visible that eventually the distinction became permanent. Spring arrived the way it does in Richmond, not gradually, but in a single week, when the temperature jumped 15°, and everything that had been gray suddenly had color, and the neighborhood came back outside in a way it hadn't been for months. People on porches again, kids on bikes, the specific sociable atmosphere of a street reclaiming itself from winter. Gerald Walsh, them with the coffee mug and the sidewalk concerns from the previous fall, walked over to Darius's driveway once a Saturday morning while Darius was loading equipment into the van.
He came without his mug this time. He came with his hands in his jacket pockets and the posture of a man who had been thinking about something for a while. Darius, he said. Darius straightened up. Gerald, a pause.
I've been meaning to say something. Gerald looked at the van at the name on the side. Congratulations on the business. I heard through the block. That's a real thing you've done.
Thank you. Another pause. Longer. And I owe you an apology. He said it without preamble.
Without the slow diplomatic approach of someone managing the conversation toward a destination. Just said it. Which told Darius it had cost him something to come over here and he respected that. Last fall at the end of the driveway, I said something that was out of line, about you and Clare, about people talking. He met Darius's eyes.