"Good. Keep being careful."
When Catherine came out, Richard turned as though he had been waiting for her. The words that followed were brief but sharp, a dispute about Lily's schedule and the emails from his attorney. Catherine demanded that Richard stop using her professional position as leverage, while Richard insisted he was concerned about stability. Then he looked at Daniel and said, with false lightness, that perhaps the handyman was giving legal advice now.
Catherine's face flushed. Daniel set down the equipment and took a step back, intending to give them privacy. He could see Lily watching through the window and knew that whatever happened next would travel through the house long after Richard left. His instinct was to remove himself, but the broken section of fence lay open behind him and his tools were still scattered across the gravel.
"This is a family matter," Richard said. "You might want your contractor to remember that."
"He knows what he's here to do," Catherine snapped.
"Does he?"
Richard glanced at the kitchen window again, toward the two children who had apparently found a reason to laugh. Catherine followed his gaze, then looked at Daniel's tools and the fresh posts and the man who had heard things she had not told her daughter. Her expression changed in an instant. Fear had been accumulating in her since the board's phone call, and Richard had found exactly where to press.
"You think I don't know what you are?" she said, turning toward Daniel.
He looked at her, surprised not by the anger but by the direction it had taken. Catherine stood straight in her expensive blazer, one hand gripping her phone. Richard had gone silent, watching her with the attention of a man who had successfully altered the course of an argument.
"You're a handyman," Catherine said, each word clipped and clean. "You fix things for people like me. That's all this is."
Daniel could have said that he knew the difference between work and family because he had spent four years learning it the hard way. He could have reminded her that he had never asked for anything beyond the agreed invoice, had not offered advice unless she asked, and had never approached her daughter except to answer questions Lily brought to him. He could have said that a person could be a handyman and still understand grief, parenting, and unfairness. Instead, he saw Lily standing inside the window, and he decided not to make a public argument out of her mother's fear.
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "That's all this is."
He picked up his toolbox and walked back to the damaged fence. Catherine stood still, listening to the sound of his boots on the gravel, and felt the sick recognition that follows a sentence you cannot call back. Richard opened his mouth as though to congratulate her, but one look at her face made him reconsider. He left a few minutes later without another threat, though the damage he had wanted was already done.