The back door opened. Catherine came across the grass carrying a second mug of coffee, this one dark blue and decorated with a small chip near its handle. She placed it on the toolbox without announcing it as a favor. Daniel found himself glad she had chosen a chipped mug rather than one of the immaculate cups he had seen inside the kitchen. He had no reason for that preference, but he understood it anyway.
"You're early," she said.
"Two minutes."
"I noticed."
"Coffee smells good. Thank you."
She stood beside the fence, looking toward the fresh posts. Her hair was neatly arranged, and there was no visible trace of the devastation she had described the day before, but Daniel noticed the way her hands returned repeatedly to the sleeves of her blazer. She had slept poorly. He did not need to ask to know that, although he asked anyway.
"Did you get any rest?"
"Some."
"How much counts as some?"
"Enough to be upright and unpleasant," she said, and the brief dryness of her answer surprised them both. "The shareholders have three weeks before the vote. My attorneys tell me there are several ways to delay the decision, but none of them seems to change the people who have already made up their minds."
"Are you sure everyone's decided?"
"The board has."
"I asked about everyone."
Catherine looked at him. "You ask irritatingly specific questions."
"They're free until I start charging for consulting."
A small smile appeared and vanished. She watched him lift a section of mesh into place, then went back inside as a call began ringing. Daniel drank the coffee while it was still hot. He had been given no invitation to become part of Catherine's business crisis, and he intended to respect that. He also could not help noticing that someone who could run a company under enormous pressure might have very few people willing to speak to her without treating her authority as either a prize or a threat.
Forty minutes later, the voices through the kitchen window became tense. Lily's was unmistakable, bright and direct, while Catherine's carried the clipped restraint of someone holding a difficult conversation together with careful language. Daniel could not help hearing fragments as he worked near the wall. He moved farther down the fence when he realized the argument concerned the company, but the words reached him anyway.
"I'm not a little kid," Lily said. "You don't get to decide what I can understand without asking me."
"I never said you were a little kid. I said there are things your mother needs to handle."
"Your things happen in our house. You stop eating dinner. You walk around at night. You say you're fine and then you forget you promised to see my presentation."
There was a long silence. Daniel held a wire clip between two fingers and waited for the sound of the window being closed. It never was. When Catherine spoke again, the urgency had gone from her voice and something much more painful had taken its place.
"I didn't forget because you don't matter," she said. "I forgot because I'm frightened of losing something I spent eleven years building, and I thought if I admitted how frightened I was, you'd be frightened, too."