a second grader's poster. Besides, Lily was already worried about getting her handwriting straight on the last line. Daniel crouched beside her and helped draw a neat border around the title with a ruler from his toolbox.
Their conversations often wandered that way, from schoolwork to machinery to questions neither of them expected. Once Lily asked why the richest people seemed to own elevators while Daniel had to carry ladders upstairs. Another time she wondered whether the person who cleaned her school earned enough to buy the same lunch as the principal. Daniel never gave her the easy answer that every difference was fair, because he knew too much about the world to believe it. Instead, he told her that jobs were different and people were not worth different amounts because of the jobs they performed.
Before they left the house, Lily noticed him dividing the remaining cash in his wallet into two small piles. He put several bills in an envelope marked GROCERIES and the rest beside his bus pass, checking the date on the back of the card. "Are we poor?" she asked with the seriousness children sometimes bring to questions adults spend their lives avoiding. Daniel stopped counting. He told her they had enough for today, that money was something he worked hard to manage, and that she could always ask him if she felt worried about it.
"I don't feel worried," Lily said. "I just don't want you to skip your lunch again." Daniel looked at her, surprised. He had not realized she noticed the way he brought home an unopened lunch box on days when a bill had been larger than expected.
"I like my lunch," he assured her. "Sometimes I get busy." Lily raised one eyebrow exactly as Emily used to do when she knew he was stretching the truth. "Being busy doesn't make your stomach stop," she said, and handed him half the banana she had saved from breakfast.