Victoria knelt to meet her at eye level. "Your dad was very kind to me."
"He's kind to lots of people," Lily replied. "Sometimes he forgets to be kind to himself."
Daniel nearly dropped the box he was carrying. Victoria looked over Lily's shoulder and smiled in a way that made him feel oddly exposed. Lily then asked Victoria to help organize the children's books by reading level, as though assigning the chief executive of a major logistics company a task were the most natural thing in the world.
Victoria complied. She spent two hours sorting books, carrying tables, and discovering that nine-year-olds ask questions without much concern for professional titles. One child wanted to know whether owning a company meant she could eat ice cream for breakfast. Another asked whether her office had a slide. Victoria answered seriously, then laughed when Lily informed her that the absence of a slide was a management failure.
After the event, Daniel walked Victoria to her car. The parking lot was warm and bright, a world away from the wet morning when they first met. She rested one hand on the driver's door and looked back at the school building.
"I didn't expect your daughter to be so funny."
"Her mother was like that," Daniel said. "Rachel could make an entire room laugh without ever trying. Lily inherited the timing."
Victoria waited. It was the first time Daniel had spoken about Rachel without the protective brevity he used at work. He looked toward the building where children were carrying stacks of books inside.
"She'd have liked today," he said. "She believed children deserved places where they could ask questions and be taken seriously."
"It sounds like she believed a lot of the things you believe."
"She taught me most of them."
Victoria nodded. "I'm glad Lily remembers her."
"She does. And I try to make sure she knows remembering isn't the same as being sad all the time."
Victoria was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "I'd like to hear more about her someday. If you want to tell me."
Daniel looked at her. In the early days of their acquaintance, he might have expected a polite statement made to fill a silence. Now he heard a real offer: she was willing to listen to the parts of his life that had nothing to do with the company or the moment she needed help. He thanked her and said he would like that.
The relationship remained slow. Daniel had no intention of inviting someone into Lily's world simply because the company had become a place where he and Victoria worked well together. Victoria understood the concern and never tried to buy closeness with gifts or extravagant outings. When Lily had a school performance, she asked whether Daniel wanted company rather than assuming an invitation. When his daughter was ill, she made sure the operational team had coverage and left him alone to be a father.