She sat across from him. “I haven't decided. It's a substantial step professionally, but I don't know if it would give me the kind of work I want, or whether I'm dismissing it because leaving here would hurt.”
“Do you want my opinion?” he asked, remembering their Saturday conversation after the Pratt signing.
“Yes. The real one. Not just 'whatever makes you happy.' I can get that from a greeting card.”
Ethan considered his answer carefully. “You could walk into that company and make half their systems better in six months. You're qualified, and the money matters. You shouldn't pretend it doesn't.”
He looked around the break room and then back at her. “But here, you can see every part of what you build. You can make a decision on Monday and know by Friday whether it worked. I don't know if a larger company would give you that kind of ownership.”
Claire was silent. He continued, “That's my opinion about the work. The rest of it, what it means for you and your dad and your life, you have to decide for yourself.”
She looked down at the phone. “You left something out.”
“What?”
“You. Mason. Whatever this place has become.”
“I didn't leave it out because it doesn't matter,” he said. “I left it out because I don't want you to feel trapped by it.”
She exhaled, and some tension moved out of her shoulders. “That's exactly what I'm scared of. I've spent a long time choosing for other people, even when I loved them. I don't want to wake up in five years and discover I stayed because I thought everyone needed me.”
“Then don't stay for that reason.”
He meant it. He also wanted, with an intensity that frightened him, to ask her not to go. Both feelings occupied the same room, and neither erased the other. He remembered Linda's advice about Mason, the boundaries Claire had insisted on from the first day, and the fact that caring about someone meant allowing her future to remain hers. He couldn't pretend the choice was easy for him, but he could make sure it stayed hers.
The week was difficult precisely because the work continued normally. Pratt's fleet came in on schedule; Sandra's courier vans arrived for maintenance; the office produced clear statements and prompt invoices. Claire answered calls and reviewed payroll; Ethan repaired vehicles and trained a newer mechanic on the importance of documenting a repair before declaring it complete. Mason received an A-minus on his social studies project and proudly reported that his teacher had called the diagonal timeline innovative. No disaster happened. The uncertainty sat beneath an otherwise excellent week and made its ordinary moments feel strangely fragile.
On Tuesday, a customer asked Claire if she planned to be there next month. She answered, truthfully, that she was managing the schedule and could book the repair. Later, staring at the appointment list, she wondered why the question had unsettled her so much. It wasn't that she feared leaving an unfinished spreadsheet. She feared walking away from a place where people had learned how to listen to one another. The thought troubled her because she didn't want affection to become another duty she couldn't lay down.