By lunch, Evan had received a preliminary written offer and completed the first round of employment paperwork. Nadia walked him through the shop, introducing him to technicians, machinists, quality inspectors, and the people who maintained the batteries of enormous industrial test equipment. She did not treat him as an intruder. She asked practical questions, listened carefully to the answers, and told him which coffee machine was least likely to burn the coffee.
"You really came here without an appointment?" she asked as they passed the test cells.
"I did."
"That was either brave or desperate."
"Can it be both?"
Nadia smiled. "Around here, usually."
Evan left in the early afternoon with an employee information packet and a promise that the offer would be finalized once his paperwork was approved. The city looked different through the windshield of his battered pickup. The same traffic crowded the same intersections, the same tires hummed over the same rough pavement, but his shoulders had stopped pressing toward his ears. He checked his bank balance at a red light after pulling safely into a parking space. Still twenty-three dollars. A job offer was not a paycheck, and a paycheck would not arrive in time to answer the eviction warning, but he had something he had not possessed that morning: a reasonable expectation of next month.
He bought groceries at a discount store where he knew which shelves carried food close to its sell-by date. Eggs, rice, apples, beans, bread, peanut butter, and the inexpensive cheese Lily liked in her lunch. Beside the register was a small display of metal toy cars marked down because their cardboard packaging had been damaged. He stood looking at one for almost a minute before adding it to his basket.
At home, the apartment smelled faintly of laundry detergent and the tomato soup he had made the night before. Lily sat cross-legged on the living room rug, building an improbable spaceship from plastic blocks. She wore striped socks that did not match and a yellow hair clip she had insisted was lucky. When the door opened, she looked up with the solemn expression she wore when waiting for news she believed adults might soften.
"Did they say yes?" she asked.
Evan set the grocery bags down. "They did."
"Yes like maybe yes, or yes like actually yes?"
"Actually yes. I just have to finish the paperwork."
Lily jumped to her feet and ran into him hard enough to make the grocery bag swing. He caught her with one arm while keeping hold of the other bag, then laughed as she tried to squeeze his waist through the canvas jacket. She smelled of crayons and the apple shampoo she had chosen herself. He closed his eyes for a moment, absorbing the ordinary miracle of being able to tell his child good news.
"We can pay the school?" she asked against his chest.
"We can pay the school," Evan said. "And we're going to sort out the other bills too."