Daniel stopped beside his truck. "Marcus, what are you getting at?"
"Nothing you need to answer. Just don't let a busy season make you forget why you started this business. You've got good people noticing good work. Keep it honest."
Daniel promised he would. He appreciated Marcus's teasing less than the advice beneath it, which was the advice of someone who had watched him struggle after Sarah's death without making that struggle a permanent definition. Marcus had subcontracted jobs to him when work was slow, invited Noah to barbecues, and let Daniel refuse help without treating the refusal as a personal insult. That kind of friendship could sustain a person for years.
On Friday morning, Richard Hail called Daniel at eight. The number was unfamiliar, but the voice became recognizable before Richard finished his first sentence. Daniel was parked outside the new job site, checking the weather before unloading materials. He considered ending the call immediately, then decided he would hear the man out as long as the conversation remained respectful.
"I want to speak with you man to man," Richard began. "About Lily. And about what's happening at Catherine's house."
"I don't have any decisions to make about Lily," Daniel answered. "Her parents do."
"That sounds very noble. But you've been spending time over there."
"I repaired the fence. Catherine invited Noah and me to a school presentation. Anything else is private."
"I have a friend in the neighborhood."
Daniel looked through the windshield at the house where he would be working and felt his attention settle into a sharper shape. "Your friend can tell you what truck I drive. They can't tell you what Lily needs."
"I'm her father. I have every right to be concerned."
"You do. But concern should make you ask her what she's afraid of before you write an attorney's letter telling her what kind of family she's supposed to live in."
There was a pause long enough for Daniel to hear traffic on Richard's end of the call. When he spoke again, the practiced confidence had lost a little of its polish. "You don't know what my relationship with her is like."
"You're right," Daniel said. "I don't. I know what I've seen, and that's not the whole thing."
"Then why are you judging me?"
"I'm not interested in judging you. I'm interested in a girl who read a custody petition and thought she was the problem it was written to solve."
Richard's breathing changed. "She read that?"
"Yes. She told her mother. And she told me she'd rather have a father who calls her because he wants to talk than a lawyer explaining where she'll sleep."
"She said that?"
"In different words. The meaning was clear."
For a while Richard said nothing. Daniel heard a car horn, then the soft hum of an engine idling. He realized that Richard might be sitting in a parking lot, trying to have a conversation he could not manage in the formal language that had become the family habit. It occurred to Daniel that he was closer to this man's pain than he wanted to admit: he, too, knew what it felt like to be afraid of losing a child, although the causes were very different.