He hated himself a little for that. The thing about Natalie Witmore was that she was very good at being looked at and not revealing anything. Caleb understood this now, having been in the same room with her eight times across four weeks. She had a kind of surface that managed to seem open. She smiled.
She responded. She maintained excellent eye contact while giving away almost nothing about the machinery running underneath. It was a skill, a very developed practice skill, and Caleb recognized it because he had a version of it himself. The difference was that Caleb had learned it from grief. He suspected Natalie had learned it earlier, much earlier.
The first time he glimpsed the machinery was on a Thursday in late October in the parking garage by accident. He'd taken the wrong elevator. The garage had two sets, and he'd gone left when he should have gone right and come out on the wrong level. And as he was turning back, he'd heard voices, not loud, not arguing, but tight, he recognized one of the voices. One of the men in dark jackets, the same two who'd been at the park.
Not bodyguards, he'd since decided something more like personal security mixed with logistics management for someone whose calendar and location were worth tracking. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could see Natalie's face in the partial light of the parking garage. And what he saw on her face in that unguarded 60 seconds was something she never showed in sweet 310. Pressure real dense pressing in from all sides. Pressure.
She was shaking her head. The man in the dark jacket was saying something with his hands spread open the body language of someone delivering news that can't be changed. only managed. She turned away from him, pressing two fingers to her forehead. And for just a moment, her composure didn't just slip, it failed. She looked in that 60 seconds like someone who was holding a structure up from inside and feeling it start to give.
Then she turned back, said something sharp and decisive, and the man in the jacket nodded and stepped back. And she was composed again like a switch. Caleb stepped back behind the elevator door. He waited 30 seconds. He went back to the correct elevator.
He didn't tell her he'd seen it, but he thought about it on the drive home. He thought about his daughter, pointing at a woman in a park and saying, "She looks sad." He thought about the specific exhaustion of being the person who holds the structure up from inside. He knew that exhaustion. He knew it in his body.
The conversation that changed things happened after the sixth session, which fell on the first Thursday of November. Ava had fallen asleep in the waiting room, genuinely fully asleep, slumped against the arm of the chair with her coat bunched under her cheek, which meant when Natalie came out, Caleb was standing 3 ft from his sleeping daughter, speaking in a low voice, and Natalie matched it without being asked. She's out. She's been fighting a cold all week. I should have rescheduled.
No, she was good today. She needed the session. Natalie looked at Ava with an expression. Caleb was starting to recognize something careful and warm that she seemed unaware she was showing. How are you?
He blinked. How are I? You look tired. I'm always tired. Different tired.
He looked at her. He was quiet for a moment. Double shift Tuesday. A walk-in freezer at a restaurant in Bethesda decided to stop working at 10 at night. And I was there until 2:30. dropped Ava at school on 4 hours of sleep, handled two service calls, picked her up, made dinner, and then apparently still looked energetic enough that she wanted to stay up until nine playing cards.