"So did everything else."
Tessa left without answering. She had no comforting lie to offer him.
That afternoon, Blaine called Callan upstairs and asked him to prepare a presentation explaining the transformation model for the next board meeting. He handed over a template with his own name already printed on the title slide.
"I need the technical story simplified," Blaine said. "The board likes clarity. No unnecessary qualifications."
Callan turned the pages. "The qualifications are what make the conclusions accurate."
"They distract from the message."
"The message is that we are still carrying material risks."
Blaine sighed, stood, and closed the office door. His public charm vanished so quickly that Callan wondered whether the expression beneath it had always been waiting.
"Let me explain something," Blaine said. "You have a comfortable job. You leave at a reasonable hour. People accommodate your family situation. Nobody bothers you. That's because I have protected the arrangement."
"I do the job I was hired to do."
"And I manage the room in which the job is judged. Don't confuse those roles."
Callan placed the template on the desk. "Put my name on the work I produced, and include the risk conclusions as written. Otherwise, I won't present it."
Blaine studied him, then smiled in a way that did not improve his expression.
"You're suddenly ambitious."
"No. I'm tired of helping you misrepresent things."
"Careful, Callan."
"That's what I've been for years."
He left the office before Blaine could reply.
The promotion announcement arrived the following Friday. Employees were invited to congratulate Blaine on his appointment and his authorship of the firm's successful operational transformation. Vivian shook his hand beside a display showing quarterly performance improvements. Callan attended only because he had been told the operations team was required to be present.
He stood near the back, beside Maya and Marcus. On the screen behind Blaine were diagrams Callan had drafted in his living room after Ellie had gone to sleep. One contained a small formatting error he remembered making at one in the morning: a connector line that stopped a fraction short of its destination box. Blaine had not even redrawn it.
"He didn't change the crooked line," Maya whispered.
Callan let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "Apparently not."
"Tell me you're going to do something."
"I am."
"What?"
"I'm going home."
She looked at him sharply, but before she could ask what he meant, the room began applauding again.
At home that evening, Ellie was working on a school assignment about people she admired. She had drawn Ruth holding a library book, their neighbor Mr. Alvarez repairing a bicycle, and Callan standing beside a computer with a very large green check mark on its screen.
"What's the check mark for?" he asked.
"You fix mistakes before they hurt people."
He sat at the table across from her. "How do you know that's what I do?"
"You told me when I was little."