He asked whether the original shareholders knew what the board was planning. Catherine said the institutional representatives had been briefed, while several early investors had received only a summary document. "Those people funded the company when it was a sketch and a set of promises," she said. "Some of them haven't taken an active vote in years." Daniel wanted to ask why, but Catherine's phone interrupted, and she went inside with an apologetic lift of her hand.
Forty minutes later raised voices passed through the kitchen window. Daniel could not distinguish every word, but Lily's frustration carried clearly. "You can't keep saying everything is fine when you're awake all night," she said. Catherine responded that adult business decisions were not a burden Lily needed to carry. Lily told her that being protected from information did not protect her from noticing the truth.
Daniel kept working while the argument shifted from anger into silence. Then Lily appeared through the back door, holding a notebook against her chest. She stopped beside the orange cones and asked, "Did she tell you about the company yesterday?" Daniel said Catherine had mentioned some difficulties, but the details belonged to her mother. Lily's face tightened. "She told a man fixing the fence before she told her own daughter."
He could understand why the girl felt betrayed. He sat on the overturned bucket he had cleaned before lunch and placed his gloves beside him, making his hands look less occupied. "Sometimes people say hard things first to somebody they don't expect to see again," he told her. "It isn't always because that person matters more. Sometimes it's because they are scared of what will happen when the people who matter most know the truth."
"I'm twelve," Lily said. "I'm not made of glass." Daniel agreed and pointed out that her mother was probably not worried about Lily breaking. "She may be worried she can't hold you steady if she admits she isn't steady herself," he said. Lily considered that while watching a drop of water slide down one of the new posts.
"She used to check on me every forty minutes," Lily said. "Now she acts like she doesn't even know I'm listening." Daniel told her she could ask Catherine what had changed, not as an accusation but as a question that deserved an honest answer. Lily wanted to know what he would do if Noah spoke to him the same way, and he told her he would probably be frightened, then embarrassed, then grateful that his son had been brave enough to tell him.
"You make it sound easy," Lily said. Daniel laughed softly and told her that the right thing was often simple to describe and difficult to do. He returned his gloves to his hands and said she had one advantage: her mother clearly wanted to protect her, even if she had chosen the wrong method. "Give her a chance to get it right before you decide she won't," he said.