Blair accused him of negotiating on behalf of employees who had voluntarily resigned. Nolan told her he was not negotiating for anyone and had not been asked to represent them. He was explaining why returning under the same conditions would be a mistake. She said she would not bargain with someone she had just dismissed, apparently forgetting that she was the person who had initiated the call.
"Then my answer is no," Nolan said. There was a long silence on the line. Blair told him he was making a decision he might regret, and he acknowledged that he might regret many things about this week. "But I won't regret asking you to listen before someone else gets hurt," he said, and ended the call.
He stood motionless for several seconds, holding the phone. The offer had unsettled him more than the firing because it showed him how easily financial fear could reopen a decision he believed was settled. He did not feel triumphant. He felt a little sick, and he had to set both hands on the kitchen counter until the sensation passed.
Nolan called Meredith to request written information about his final compensation and benefits. She sounded tired and professional, and she gave him the number for the benefits office along with a copy of the termination paperwork. He asked whether the twenty workers had really resigned. She confirmed that they had, but said she could not disclose their individual circumstances.
"I didn't ask them to do that," he said. Meredith answered gently, "I know. They didn't ask you to get fired either." She told him there would be a board meeting on Friday and that someone might contact him to request his account of the dismissal. He thanked her and went back to the stuffing, although his hands moved more slowly for a while.
At two, snow began melting into a wet glaze on the sidewalk. Nolan cleared the front steps and spread a little salt because Tessa would arrive with her hands full of bags and he did not want her slipping. He checked the turkey, made the potatoes, and reheated the gravy twice because Anna's recipe described the proper consistency in words that were not entirely useful to a logistics manager. By late afternoon the house had begun to smell the way it had when Tessa was little.
Headlights swept across the kitchen window just after four. Nolan looked up and saw Tessa's compact car pull into the driveway, its roof covered with road salt and melting snow. She climbed out in a gray coat with a bag of rolls tucked beneath one arm and a pie box held carefully in the other. The wind had tangled her dark blond hair, and she was smiling before she reached the door.
"I brought the pie," she announced. "Don't say I've never contributed to this family." Nolan took the bags and told her the gravy might count as a public health concern. She laughed and followed him into the kitchen, where she stopped at the sight of the two plates and the menu propped against the salt shaker.