Not ever. Not for any reason. He studied her face the way he studied machinery, looking for the thing that was going to fail. The place where the tolerance was too thin, the joint that would crack under pressure. He was good at finding those things.
He didn't find one. All right, he said. She straightened up from the doorway, pulled her jacket back into alignment with the small precise motion of someone resettling armor. I have three more facilities to review this afternoon, she said. I'll be here until 4:00.
I know, she said, and she left. He stood in the utility room for a moment. Then he turned back to the sink, finished cleaning up, and went back to work. But as he walked back through the facility floor, past the dock that was running clean now, past the workers going about the morning that had gone sideways and been put right, there was something different in the day, some quality of it that hadn't been there before. He recognized it eventually.
It was the particular feeling of something beginning. He had not felt that in a long time. He did not yet know whether to be grateful for it or afraid. 3 weeks passed. Darius told himself it meant nothing, that he had met an interesting woman under unusual circumstances, that she had turned out to be the owner of the building where he worked, and that the world was full of small coincidences that signaled nothing beyond themselves.
He told himself this with the same calm, methodical discipline he brought to everything. The way he diagnosed a failing compressor. The way he planned Amara's school week. The way he had rebuilt his life after Kesha left. And the scaffolding of everything he thought was permanent turned out to be temporary.
He was good at being practical. He was less good, as it turned out, at forgetting the way a person laughed. When they'd forgotten, they still could. He did not call the number on the card. He carried the card.
That was the distinction he made. And the one he held on to for exactly 23 days until a Wednesday morning in December when his phone rang at 6:50 a.m. With a number he didn't recognize and something in him already knew before he picked up. I have a problem, Victoria said without preamble without hello, a mechanical problem or what I think is a mechanical problem. My operations director says it's a workflow issue.
My floor supervisor says it's a staffing issue. I have three people telling me three different things and I need someone who will tell me the truth. Darius sat up in bed. Good morning to you too, a beat. Good morning.
I'm sorry. Good morning, Darius. He heard the deliberateness of it, the conscious gear shift from business mode to human mode and appreciated that she knew the difference. Where? He said the South Loop facility.
I can have a car there in 10 minutes. I have a car, right? Yes. Of course you do. Another beat.