He stopped long enough to drink from his thermos. The green Minecraft sticker near the lid had been put there by Noah three months earlier, after an argument about whether work equipment needed to look serious. Noah had insisted that it needed to look useful, and the sticker was useful because he could find his father's thermos among other people's tools. Daniel had conceded the argument. He was still smiling at the memory when a voice spoke from the corner of the house.
"You took out all three posts."
The girl was slight and dark-haired, perhaps twelve, wearing sneakers and a faded school sweatshirt. She stood several feet away with her hands behind her back, leaning forward as though the fence were an interesting science experiment. Daniel had heard the back door open but had not realized anyone was watching him. He set down the thermos and looked toward the removed timber.
"The third one looked all right from the top," he said. "At the bottom, it wasn't."
"How could you tell?"
"Come look. Stay on this side of the tools."
She approached with the serious interest of someone who liked being treated as capable of understanding an answer. Daniel pointed to a pale area beneath the old paint and asked her to press the wood lightly with her palm. It gave beneath her fingers. Her eyes widened, and she pressed again, not harder, just enough to confirm that she had felt it correctly.
"It looked solid," she said.
"That's why you check the base. Things that look strong sometimes aren't. And sometimes something looks broken when only one part needs to be replaced."
The girl turned toward him. For one unexpected second, she seemed to hear a meaning he had not intended. Then she straightened and brushed the wood dust from her hand. "I'm Lily."
"Daniel."
"I know. Mom said a contractor was coming, and she made me stay out of the way."
"Staying on the safe side of the tools would be enough."
Lily thought that over and smiled. "Do you want a sandwich? I made three. Mom doesn't eat when she's busy, so usually one is left."
Daniel had packed lunch, as he always did. He disliked depending on clients for meals, not because he was proud of going hungry but because blurred boundaries could make a simple job complicated. Yet Lily's offer was not a transaction, and refusing it seemed unnecessarily unkind. He accepted, thanking her, and she returned a few minutes later with a turkey sandwich on a plate, a folded napkin, and a glass of ice water that sweated in the heat.