The window fell silent. Daniel kept working, mixing the next batch of concrete and checking the slope of the drainage beside the old footing. He had heard that same tone in his own voice in hospital corridors, when doctors had explained the difference between a treatment worth trying and a treatment that could no longer help Sarah. He knew that whatever had happened inside Catherine's kitchen belonged to her. He also knew that privacy did not always require pretending not to see somebody hurting.
Fifteen minutes later, the back door opened. Catherine crossed the lawn without her phone and stopped near the far end of the damaged fence. She stood with her arms folded, facing the line of trees, her posture so upright it seemed held in place by will alone. Her shoes were beginning to sink into the grass. Daniel kept his attention on the alignment of the next post, waiting long enough to give her the choice of whether to speak.
"I could use another pair of hands for a minute," he said at last.
"I'm not dressed for construction work."
"You don't have to do construction work. Just keep this post steady while I check the angle."
For several seconds she did not move. Then he heard the careful sound of expensive heels coming across the grass. Catherine put both hands around the post and held it so firmly that Daniel almost told her to relax. He checked his level, adjusted the base, and checked again. The bubble settled between the marks.
"There," he said. "Straight."
She let go and looked at the pale dust on her fingers. "I don't usually do this kind of work."
"I guessed."
"Does it bother you when people say that?"
He thought for a moment. "No. Everybody has work they know and work they don't. I'd be terrible at yours until somebody showed me how."
Catherine looked toward the window. "The board is pushing me out of my own company."
The words were so direct that Daniel stopped reaching for his tools. She seemed almost surprised to have spoken them aloud. After another moment she continued, explaining that the company she had built in a second bedroom eleven years earlier had become an organization valued at roughly forty million dollars. The board now wanted to replace her under the polite description of a strategic leadership transition. A shareholder vote had been scheduled in three weeks, and the people who had once praised her ambition were suddenly describing it as an obstacle.
"They call it constructive dismissal," she said. "As if choosing a careful phrase makes what they're doing less violent."
"What's the reason they gave?"
"Changing market conditions. Different leadership requirements. The usual language when people want the thing you've built but not the person who built it."
Catherine looked toward the house again. "I started it when Lily was a baby. I took calls in the hallway while she slept. I used to carry her on my hip during conference calls because I couldn't afford proper childcare and couldn't afford to stop."
Daniel thought of Noah in his pajamas and Sarah's yellow flowers on the windowsill. "Does Lily know?"