it until he fell asleep. Sometimes hearing her voice made the empty chair across the kitchen table seem larger than the room itself.
On Saturday, Daniel repaired a neighbor's screen door and refused payment beyond the sandwich she insisted on making him. Lily sat beside him on the steps, handing over screws in the order he asked for them. When he explained how a spring hinge worked, she wanted to know why he did not invent something that fixed every door automatically.
"Because every door is a little different," he said. She considered this. "Then maybe people are like doors. You have to know what's wrong before you fix it."
He laughed at the comparison, but it stayed with him. Lily could turn a small mechanical explanation into a judgment about people without realizing how often adults failed at the same task. He kissed the top of her head and told her that was a very good way of putting it. She smiled and returned to sorting screws into a plastic container. At home that evening, she taped a photograph of the old workshop beside her school poster and asked him to make sure it would not fall off during the presentation.
Monday arrived with hard rain, gray skies, and a bus schedule already running behind. Daniel had packed their lunches the night before and left the house wearing the cleanest work shirt he owned. Lily stood in the doorway, her backpack almost as large as her torso, and reminded him that he had promised to attend her history presentation on Thursday afternoon. He put his hand over his heart as if making a solemn oath. "I will be there," he said, "even if every door in the city falls off its hinges."
"Maybe don't say that," Lily replied. "You might have to fix them all." She waved until he turned the corner. Daniel was still smiling when he reached the bus stop, and