Ray was quiet for a moment. "Your father would be proud. And I hope you'll still come by a job site when you get tired of people wearing suits."
"I won't stay away for long."
I visited Eastgate once more before leaving. Louise handed me a new hard hat that the crew had signed on the inside, while Danny stood beside the trailer holding the notebook I had told him to use. He had filled half of it with measurements, material deliveries, and questions about things he didn't understand. When I looked at his entry for level four, the pour date matched the invoice and the inspection record.
"You didn't sign the first application," Danny said. "I thought you were being difficult."
"I was being difficult. Sometimes that's the job."
He laughed, then grew serious. "Now I know why."
Louise took the hard hat from his hands and put it into mine. "Just don't become the kind of owner who forgets what it's like standing in the mud," she said. "We already have enough of them."
I promised I wouldn't. I meant it, although I knew promises are easy when you're standing among people who like you. The real test would come later, when budgets tightened and somebody asked me to approve a shortcut that looked harmless on paper. Samuel's notebooks had never been a substitute for courage. They were a way to support it when the moment arrived.
Vanessa's withdrawal of her trust-related claim came quietly. Constance received notice that Vanessa had retained a different attorney, a white American woman with extensive family-law experience and no known professional connection to Rhodes Capital. After reviewing the records and considering her own interests, Vanessa filed to withdraw the contested claim while the ordinary divorce proceeding continued toward final judgment. No court forced her to do it, and I did not ask her to make the filing as a condition of our settlement.
I learned through Terrence that she and Julian had separated. He would not tell me the private details unless I asked, and I didn't. What he did tell me was that Vanessa had moved into a small apartment on the west side, taken a leave from several social obligations, and begun meeting with a counselor. She had kept her employment at Crestview but no longer attended every event that appeared on the company's social calendar.
Terrence asked whether he could bring her a box of old photographs I had found while packing. I said yes and left it with him at my mother's house. Some showed us camping in the mountains, laughing in the rain, or holding the crooked birthday cake she had baked during our second year together. I wanted her to have those memories because the marriage had once been real and good, and I did not need to destroy evidence of the good parts to prove the ending was final.
"I told her she has to live with her decisions," Terrence said one evening. "Not because she deserves to be miserable, but because pretending somebody else caused everything would keep her stuck."
"I hope she figures it out."
"Do you want her to call?"
I considered the question. There was a time when I would have waited all evening by the phone, rehearsing the conversation I hoped would bring us back together. Now I wanted her to learn how to live without needing my forgiveness to make her choices feel acceptable. "I don't know," I said. "But I don't think we have anything left to settle as husband and wife."