"I'm offering you a conversation about one," Victoria said. "I don't want to insult you with a title that looks impressive and a schedule that makes your life impossible. Legal and HR still need to evaluate the position properly. But our company needs someone who can help people understand one another before a negotiation reaches a crisis, and today you demonstrated that ability."
He turned the page. The proposed salary was more than he had earned in the best of his recent years, though well below what his old career at its peak might once have commanded. The number mattered. He thought of the braces estimate, the rent, the savings account that never seemed to get ahead of the next repair. Yet another number mattered more: the percentage of time the role required him to travel. It was written as a guideline rather than a contractual limit.
"This says occasional travel," he observed. "What does occasional mean when a deal starts falling apart?"
Victoria didn't pretend the question was unreasonable. "That's something we need to define."
"I can't promise to fly to Tokyo every time a meeting becomes urgent. I can't promise a schedule that leaves Sophie checking the front window every night. If this only works while everything is calm, it doesn't work for me."
"Then we write the boundaries clearly," Victoria said. "Remote participation as the default. Travel only by mutual agreement, planned in advance except where you volunteer for an emergency. Defined hours and the ability to leave for family obligations. I have no intention of asking you to sacrifice the reason you left the field."
"That's a lot to promise before we've discussed it with your people."
"Which is why I said this is a conversation. I want you to make us prove it."
Daniel looked at the folder for another moment. The offer stirred a hope he had worked hard not to encourage. Hope had a cost. It could make a person rearrange a life around something that had not yet happened, and he had seen too many uncertain opportunities vanish after the first enthusiastic conversation. Still, the pages were real, and Victoria was listening to his conditions rather than waving them away. He tucked the folder under his arm.
"I'll read it carefully," he said. "And I'll talk to Sophie."
Victoria's expression softened. "Good. Tell her I appreciate the loan of her father for the afternoon."
"She'll probably send you an invoice for the batteries."
"If she does, I suspect it will be fair."
He left the building at five thirty-two, only two minutes later than he had hoped. Outside, the rain had become a fine mist. The commuter crowds flowed around him, carrying briefcases, shopping bags, and umbrellas, each person moving toward a private life no one else could read from their clothes. Daniel walked to the train station, stopping at a small hardware store for two packets of batteries. They cost more than the discount ones. He bought them anyway, then added a fresh roll of blue electrical tape because Sophie had been trying to make an ordinary strip of masking tape hold a wire in place all week.