Then Tuesday.
Sometimes she stayed an hour.
Sometimes four.
She never arrived with an entourage.
Never brought an Arcturus laptop unless she had work she genuinely needed to finish.
Daniel slowly discovered that the CEO he had imagined for twelve years was not entirely the woman sitting on his parents’ porch.
Evelyn was disciplined.
Private.
Sometimes blunt.
Bad at idle conversation.
Surprisingly funny when she forgot to be careful.
She hated raisins.
She loved old mystery novels.
She had not taken a proper vacation in five years.
She owned a beautiful condominium overlooking Portland and rarely cooked in it.
The first time Daniel served homemade soup, she stared at the bowl.
“What?”
“I’m determining whether you expect feedback.”
“It’s soup.”
“You worked at Arcturus too long.”
“That’s possible.”
“Eat.”
She did.
Lily watched their conversations.
At first from a distance.
Then closer.
Watercolor paintings began covering the kitchen wall.
Birds came first.
Some accurate.
Some imaginary.
A blue hawk with six wings.
A red owl with a gold tail.
A cedar waxwing larger than a house.
Then houses returned.
Trees.
Three figures appeared occasionally.
Daniel noticed.
He did not ask.
Three weeks into the visits, Evelyn sat across from him at the kitchen table.
“I want to tell you something.”
Daniel waited.
“Not as your former CEO.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It probably is.”
He put down his coffee.
Evelyn folded her hands.
“Victor’s denial was wrong.”
Daniel said nothing.
“I reviewed the underlying policy.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to know whether he was constrained by something I had approved.”
“And?”