“Convenient.”
Vivien turned on him.
“Leave.”
Derek stared.
“Excuse me?”
“You are suspended from this meeting pending review of your conduct.”
“You cannot be serious.”
“I am.”
“Vivien.”
“Your badge stays with corporate security until I decide otherwise.”
Derek’s face hardened.
“Over a handyman?”
Reed looked at him for the first time since the video started.
“Repair is honest work.”
Derek smiled without humor.
“That sounded inspirational.”
“No.”
Reed lifted his bag.
“Just accurate.”
Then he left.
He drove his twelve-year-old Ford across St. Louis with seven minutes to spare.
Southgate Elementary’s front doors opened as he pulled into the pickup line.
Children poured onto the sidewalk in winter coats and backpacks.
Juny appeared in purple.
One sleeve of her coat was half turned inside out.
Her braid had mostly surrendered.
She saw his truck.
Ran three steps.
Remembered she was ten and apparently too mature to run to her father.
Then changed to what she probably considered a dignified fast walk.
She climbed in.
“Henry.”
Reed reached into his jacket and pulled out the plastic horse.
“He supervised a complicated job.”
Juny examined it.
“No injuries?”
“One paint scratch.”
“That was already there.”
“Then excellent performance.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You look weird.”
“I always look weird.”
“No. Different weird.”
Reed turned on the heater.
“Long day.”
“Did someone give you trouble?”
He looked at her.
Children who lose one parent young often become frighteningly skilled at reading the remaining one.
“A man forgot his manners.”
“Did you remind him?”
Reed almost smiled.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
They stopped at a pharmacy on the way home.
Juny had mild asthma, usually controlled, but winter colds sometimes triggered wheezing. Reed picked up her replacement inhaler.
At the register, the cost had increased again.
He counted bills.
Used his card for the rest.
Pretended not to calculate what that meant for the truck tire he had planned to replace Friday.
That arithmetic was the center of his real life.
Not emergency systems.
Not classified work.
Rent.
Medicine.
Groceries.
Gas.
School supplies.
Whether he could take a Saturday warehouse call without missing Juny’s science fair setup.
At home, he cooked spaghetti while Juny worked on a cardboard river-lock model for school.
She had built channels from cereal boxes and plastic containers.
Tiny painted gates controlled blue water she planned to pour from a pitcher during the demonstration.
“The pressure is wrong,” she announced.
Reed stirred sauce.
“Pressure usually is.”
“If I open this gate first, everything floods.”
“Then don’t open that gate first.”
She frowned.
“That is very unhelpful engineering.”
“It’s technically correct.”
She threw a paper towel at him.
He laughed.