He ate standing beside the truck while she asked questions about the concrete mix and the wires he had laid out. She was quick, curious, and careful not to touch anything without asking, though her curiosity had the effect of making a great many things suddenly necessary to explain. Daniel found himself giving longer answers than usual. It had been a long time since anyone had wanted to know how a fence worked simply because the answer was interesting.
"You have a kid," Lily said suddenly.
"How did you figure that out?"
She pointed at his thermos. "Minecraft. Adults don't put those stickers on things unless children make them."
"My son Noah is nine. He thinks stickers improve nearly every object in the known world."
"He's probably right. Does he help you?"
"Sometimes, when the work is safe and school is finished. He's good at keeping track of measurements."
Lily sat on a low stone border and watched a butterfly move through the flowering shrubs. "Mom used to bring me to her office when I was little," she said. "I had a corner of a conference room with paper and colored pencils. She'd check on me every forty minutes. Exactly forty. I timed her once."
"That's quite a schedule."
"It was nice. Even when she was busy, I knew when she'd come back." Lily lowered her gaze toward the grass. "Then Dad left, and eventually Mom decided I was old enough to stay home. I was nine."
Daniel said nothing at first. Children often told the truth in a straightforward way adults would spend an hour trying to make less embarrassing. He knew that Lily was not asking him to solve a family problem, but he also knew that silence could sound like agreement with the wrong thing. He set down his empty plate and looked at her.
"Nine is old enough for some things," he said. "Not everything."
"That's what I keep saying."
"You might have to keep saying it until somebody hears you."
Lily regarded him for a moment, then picked up the plate. "You talk like Noah's probably not afraid to tell you things."
"He tells me things I wish he would wait to tell me until after coffee. But yes, he talks."
She smiled again, took the dishes, and went back toward the house. Daniel followed her with his eyes until she disappeared. Then he crouched beside the first new post and checked its position once more before setting it. His work required patience, and on that particular morning patience felt easier than it had for weeks.
At 1:15 he heard a voice through the open kitchen window. Catherine was on a call, and he could not make out most of the words, but the rhythm was familiar. Someone was delivering bad news, and she was choosing every response with the disciplined concentration of a person who could not afford to sound frightened. "I understand," she said twice, the second time more quietly.
Then, "No. I understand completely. Thank you for telling me directly."