After the meeting, Elena asked Maren to remain for a few minutes with Julian and the project manager. They discussed possible contract values, the scope of deliverables, and the need for independent verification at major stages. Julian warned that the client still had budget authority and that nothing would be certain until the agreement was executed. Maren said she understood. Elena told her that the project would not pay a premium merely because the wood carried a good story. It would pay for a material solution that met the design and stood up to actual use. Maren said that was exactly what she intended to build.
She called me from a parking garage afterward. The first thing she said was that she thought she had a real chance. Her voice trembled on the last word, and I couldn't tell whether she was close to laughing or crying. She told me about Julian's question and Preston's answer, then moved almost immediately to the technical conditions the client wanted resolved. She had already begun writing a list of follow-up actions before the elevator reached the garage. That, more than the meeting result, convinced me she might make the opportunity work. She was still thinking about the next necessary job rather than congratulating herself for surviving the last one.
I asked whether she felt vindicated. She said she felt exhausted and dangerously excited, which was not the same thing. Then she asked if I could help her find a dependable carrier for a staged shipment rather than sending all the material at once. We discussed delivery insurance, handling costs, and what a series of small verified milestones might do for her cash flow. By the time we hung up, she was sounding like the woman I'd known before Preston's rumor had put her shop under a cloud. She was planning work instead of defending the fact that she had dared to try it.
The agreement was signed in the second week of August. Its value was substantial for a business the size of Winslow Custom Timber, but the number on the signature page was not a personal fortune. Maren had to pay for the remaining material conversion, specialized drying, steelwork, additional skilled labor, equipment access, testing, insurance, packing, shipping, and a hundred smaller demands that a beautiful photograph cannot reveal. The contract spread the work through documented milestones and left room for material defects that could require redesign. It was a serious commercial obligation, not a prize awarded because an underdog had won the audience's sympathy.
That evening Maren came home with a copy of the executed agreement in a folder. Annie was at the kitchen counter making a sandwich and asked whether the people in San Francisco had said yes. Maren put the folder on the table and told her they had. Annie looked at her mother's face for a long moment before asking whether this meant they could stop worrying about money. Maren knelt beside her chair and answered honestly.