"James brought two other original shareholders," she said without greeting. "I thought I was having one meeting. I had three."
"Did they listen?"
"For nearly two hours. They asked questions I'd been trying to get the board to ask for months. They looked at the actual contracts, not the summaries. And then James said something that almost made me cry."
Daniel turned off the tap. "What did he say?"
"He said the board's proposal looked like something written by people who wanted the harvest without admitting who planted it. Then he told me he'd watched me build this company for eleven years and that he was ashamed he'd waited so long to say he disagreed with the board."
"Sounds like a good man."
"He's seventy-three and more direct than anyone on my legal team. He promised to call three people tonight. The people who make decisions before anyone writes down the decisions."
"Are those enough votes?"
"Not yet. They give us a chance to build a blocking minority. We need more, but at least we're having a real conversation now."
"That's progress."
Catherine became quiet. Daniel could hear a car passing in the background and realized she was still sitting in her own driveway. He pictured the house through its large windows, Lily somewhere inside waiting for her mother's attention, the repaired fence standing along the property line in the dark. He hoped Catherine would go inside before they finished talking.
"I nearly cried in front of them," she said.
"Would that have been so terrible?"
"Probably not. But I'm not good at it."
"Neither am I. I got a lot of practice pretending not to need it."
"What changed?"
Daniel thought about Noah asking whether he could still be sad after someone apologized. "My son started noticing when I lied about how I felt. It turned out that being honest with a nine-year-old was less embarrassing than pretending to be indestructible."
"Lily would agree with that."
There was another pause. This one felt easier. The silence had begun to become part of their conversation, not a space that one or the other felt obliged to repair. Daniel put his mug down and waited.
"Will you come to Lily's school presentation next Tuesday?" Catherine asked. "You and Noah. She told me she wanted you there, and I realized I did, too. Dinner first, if you can."
"What time?"
"Six-fifteen for dinner. Seven for the presentation."
"We can be there by six."
"Of course you can." He could hear her smiling. "Two minutes early, probably."
"Wouldn't want to disappoint you."
"You couldn't disappoint me by being late," she said, then grew serious. "But I think I would miss the way you pay attention to a promise."