She sat down and opened the staffing dashboard. It showed empty positions, emergency overtime requests, and an estimated delay risk through the weekend. Her eyes moved to the note beside Nolan's name indicating that his employment had been terminated by executive action. For the first time she wondered whether rehiring him might solve more than the operating problem. If she could persuade him to return, the board might see the episode as a misunderstanding that leadership had corrected quickly.
She had no intention of inviting the entire crew back on their own terms. Twenty people leaving together felt to her like an attack on the chain of command, and she believed inviting them back would reward disobedience. Nolan was different because he knew the system, and because his return could give the company a story that sounded like reconciliation. She picked up her phone and instructed Paige to find his number.
Across town, Nolan had finally slept for a few hours. He woke to the sound of the furnace and, for one disorienting second, thought he had overslept for a shift. Then he remembered the badge on the dispatch table. He lay still, looking at the ceiling while fear arrived in waves, not as a single overwhelming thought but as a series of practical questions.
How long would the savings last? Would his health coverage continue through the end of the month? Which companies were hiring managers with his qualifications? What would a prospective employer think when a man with eleven years of service explained that his last job had ended the evening before Thanksgiving? He made a list in his head and then forced himself to get out of bed because the turkey needed preparing and Tessa was coming home.
The kitchen smelled of cold coffee and the cloves he had placed beside the stove. The two plates remained on the counter, and the handwritten menu stood exactly where he had left it. He opened the refrigerator and took out the celery and onions. By ten, he was chopping vegetables for stuffing and trying not to calculate severance he had never been promised.
Tessa called from her friend's apartment a little after ten-thirty. The roads were still slick, she said, but the forecast suggested conditions would improve by early afternoon. Nolan told her to take as long as she needed. He nearly mentioned the firing, then decided he wanted to explain it when she could see his face and ask questions without worrying about driving.
After the call, he took Anna's recipe box from the pantry. The cards were stained and softened at the edges from decades of use, and she had written little corrections in the margins. More sage if Nolan is cooking, one note said, with a small smile drawn beside it. He laughed once, quietly, and then stood for a moment with his fingers resting on the handwriting.
He remembered the first Thanksgiving after Anna died. Tessa had made a list of foods they used to eat and insisted they cook together, but Nolan accepted an overtime shift because he could not imagine sitting at the table without Anna. His sister took Tessa for dinner while he supervised a warehouse full of holiday freight. He told himself they would do Thanksgiving properly the following year, then spent several years making versions of the same promise.