Terrence Andre said he set the visitor badge on the desk. The badge reader on the east corridor suble one has it been recalibrated since the IT team came through 2 weeks ago. Terrence blinked. I don't think so. They were supposed to but I don't think it got done.
Add it to the maintenance log. Andre said market priority. Terrence stared at him for a second. Then he picked up a pen. "Yes, sir," he said.
Andre walked to the window and looked out at the parking lot. "The four remaining SUVs." The Atlanta afternoon building toward full heat. A city going about its business. While inside this building, the slow machinery of accountability was grinding forward as it always does, never as fast as you want it to.
Always eventually. His phone buzzed. A text from Damon. How you holding up for real? He typed back.
Getting there. Damon replied immediately. Maya is going to want pancakes tonight. Just saying. That's what Williams men do when things get hard.
Pancakes. Andre stared at the text. Something moved through him. Not quite a laugh, not quite tears. the particular feeling that lives between the two. In the space where relief and exhaustion and love all arrive at the same moment and don't know how to share the room, he typed, "I'll get the blueberries."
He put his phone in his pocket. He had approximately 4 hours before he had to be at Maya's school. 4 hours in which the investigation would continue. The legal processes would begin to formalize, and a building full of 3,200 people would slowly start to understand what had nearly happened to them and what had stopped it. 4 hours in which Andre Williams, who had arrived this morning as a man whose worth nobody in this building had taken the time to measure, was going to have to decide what he wanted the next chapter of his life to look like.
He was still standing at the window when Evelyn appeared beside him again. She had the specific talent for appearing at the right moment. That long tenured building people develop. They know the rhythms. They know where someone will be.
They know when a person needs company and when they need silence. You're staying, she said. Not a question. Haven't decided yet, he said. You're staying, she said again.