She said it simply. That's the strange part. He held her gaze. Why do you think that is? Because you don't want anything from me.
Everyone wants something. Not like this. Not the way people want things from the CEO of a company. She turned the cup in her hands. You want to do good work.
You want Eli to see you do it. You want to learn Portuguese because your son loves Brazil. She shook her head slightly. Those are not things I can give you. Which means when you're talking to me, you're just talking to me.
The restaurant made its quiet noise around them. Plates. Low conversation, someone laughing at the bar. When did you last talk to someone who just talked back? He asked.
She thought about it. I don't remember, she said. And the honesty of that, the flat, undefended honesty of it seemed to surprise even her. I'm sorry, he said not performatively, just as a true thing. Don't be.
She picked up her soup spoon. I made the choices that led here. I'm not looking for sympathy. A pause. I'm looking for I think I'm looking for a different way of seeing what comes next.
And you think I can help with that? She looked at him steadily. I think you already have. Hi. Daniel got home at 9:53.
Mrs. Paulson was in her coat, her purse already on her arm, which meant Eli had been a handful about bedtime. He's in bed, she said. He is not asleep. I want you to know that I did everything correctly and the problem is generational. I'll talk to him.
He wants to tell you about something he learned about fossils. I told him it could wait until morning. He disagreed. She pulled on her gloves. He also made me look at three different videos on the subject.
I now know more about ammonites than I ever expected to. Thank you, Margaret. She stopped at the door, looked at him. You look different tonight, she said. Different how?
She considered like you remembered something you forgot. She left before he could answer. He stood in the hallway for a moment. Then he knocked on Eli's door. I know you're not asleep.
I'm almost asleep. Tell me about the fossils. A pause. Then the sound of his son sitting straight up in bed. Things did not change dramatically.
They changed the way real things changed slowly with setbacks, with moments of clarity and moments of confusion. And long stretches in between where nothing seemed to be moving at all. Victoria had two board meetings in the following three weeks that consumed her completely and Daniel barely saw her. When he did, it was passing in the corridor. A nod, a brief acknowledgement, professional, appropriate, the kind of contact that gave nothing away.
But on a Thursday evening, she stopped in the doorway of the project workspace coat and bag over her shoulder. Still finding things. Floor 22 HVAC. The 40-minute cycle was a secondary pump on an automated flush sequence installed incorrectly 9 years ago. It's been running at the wrong pressure the whole time damaging anything.
Not yet. It will be. She shook her head slowly. How many of these are there in a building this size with this age of installation? I'd guess 8 to 12 more issues we haven't found yet.
That's alarming. That's buildings. He leaned back in his chair. Nothing fails all at once. Things fail quietly over a long time.
And then one day they fail loudly and everyone acts like it came from nowhere. She held his gaze. You're not only talking about buildings, she said. I'm talking about buildings. A pause.
But no, he said. Not only. She stood in the doorway for another moment. Then I had a conversation with my daughter today. Daniel didn't know she had a daughter.
He kept that off his face. We haven't spoken in almost 8 months, she said. I called her. Just called her out of nowhere. How did it go?
Awkward, stilted. She was surprised. I was terrible at it. She paused, but she answered. That's something.
It's something. She straightened. I'm telling you because you're the reason I made the call. I didn't tell you to call her. No, you told me that what I have seemed worth thinking about.
She looked at him. So, I thought about it and I called. He didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say that would be better than what was already in the room. Go home, Daniel, she said quietly.
Your son should see you tonight. He looked at the screen, saved his work, closed the laptop. Good night, Victoria. It was the first time he had used her name. She heard it.
He knew she heard it. Neither of them commented on it. She turned and walked down the corridor, and he listened to her footsteps until they faded. And then he gathered his things and went home to Eli. It was Priya who first said something, and she said it to Antoine, and Antoine said it to Bryce.
And by the time it made its way back to Daniel, it had been filtered through enough professional discretion that it arrived as a neutral observation rather than gossip. "People are noticing," Bryce said without preamble on a Friday morning. "The amount of time Harrington spends in this department." Daniel looked at his screen. "Okay, I'm not saying anything about it," Bryce said. "I want to be clear.
I'm saying people are noticing and I think you should know." What are they saying? Different things depending on who's saying it. Bryce was quiet for a moment. Some people are saying she's invested in the project. She is invested in the project.
Some people are saying something else. Daniel looked at him then. People are going to say what they say, Daniel said. I can't control that. No.