PART 3:

Violet walked to where Levi stood holding the envelope. She looked down at the boy, then at the card in his small hands, and then up at Dominic. She took the envelope. Her hands were very steady when she opened it. She broke the silver seal cleanly, peeled back the flap, and unfolded the single sheet of paper inside.

She read it without making any sound. Then she read it again. The lobby was silent enough that the rain on the glass was audible. Connor Blake said, in the tone of someone being reasonable, “It could be a forgery. People do this kind of thing. They research executives, they find signatures, “It’s not a forgery.” Violet’s voice was quiet, but it had weight.

“I know my father’s handwriting.” The note was short. It said, “Violet, if you’re still angry with me, stay angry for later, but first trust the man who carries these flowers.” She folded the paper and held it against her palm. Dominic watched her face and said nothing. He had not known what the card said.

He still didn’t. He had taken the job because Marcus needed someone to cover a delivery, and he needed the hours, and the alternative was sitting home counting $43. He looked at the CEO of Sterling Group holding a note from her dead father, and felt that there was something very large happening around him that he did not yet have the shape of.

“Who are you?” Violet asked him. “My name is Dominic Cole. I work part-time at Petals and Green. I was asked to make this delivery.” “Do you know why my father chose you?” “I didn’t know he was your father.” She studied him for a long moment. “That’s not an answer.” “I met a man about 3 years ago.” Dominic said carefully. “I helped him when his car was in trouble. He was kind to me afterward.

I didn’t know his name at the time, and I didn’t learn it after. That’s the honest extent of what I know.” Levi, who had been standing very quietly through all of this, spoke up in the small, matter-of-fact voice of someone reporting a simple fact. “My dad doesn’t open other people’s mail.” he said. “Even when we’re short on money, he never does.

” The lobby was very still again. Violet looked at the boy. Something flickered across her face, not pity, something closer to recognition. She had not cried in the lobby of her own company in a very long time. She was not about to start. But there was something in the cleanliness of what the boy had said, the way he’d offered it without guile, that pressed against her in a way she wasn’t ready for.

Connor Blake broke the silence briskly. “The board meeting is in 2 hours. We can’t have “Hannah.” Violet said. “Please take Mr. Cole and his son somewhere they can wait comfortably. Not the main lobby.” She looked at Dominic. “I’d like to talk with you before you leave.” Connor’s jaw set slightly. He said nothing.

Dominic nodded once, gathered the flowers more securely, and followed Hannah toward the elevator with Levi at his side. The boy’s hand once again tucked into the pocket with his toy car. The small waiting area Hannah led them to was on the fourth floor, a room with good chairs, a side table with coffee and water, and a view of the city in the rain.

Hannah set Levi up with a glass of juice and a small pad of paper and a pen, and the boy began drawing trucks with careful concentration. His toy car sat on the table beside the paper like a reference. Violet came in 20 minutes later. She sat across from Dominic and set the folded note on the table between them. “Tell me about the night you met my father.” she said.

Dominic was quiet for a moment. He thought back to it the way he thought about most hard things, directly, without flinching, but without dwelling, either. He remembered the rain. He remembered he had been terrified because Levi had a fever of 103, and he’d been driving to the urgent care clinic when he saw the car stopped at an angle against the curb on Hadley Road, hazard lights blinking.

The man inside was older, gray-haired, well-dressed. He had gotten out to check the front of the car and was standing in the rain without a coat. There was no physical injury. The car had sideswiped the curb hard enough to blow a tire and trigger something in the engine, but the man was unhurt.

What he was, Dominic realized, was shaken. Badly shaken in the quiet way older people sometimes were, the way that looked like calm but wasn’t. Dominic pulled over. He didn’t particularly want to. His son was sick, and he was behind, and the rain was coming down sideways, but he pulled over. He called roadside assistance.

He helped the man back into the car, out of the rain, then gave the man his own jacket because the car was too cold to warm up quickly, and the man had started to shiver. He sat beside Levi in the back seat with his arm around his son, and watched through the windshield until the tow truck arrived. While they waited, he called the urgent care clinic to say he’d be delayed, and he spoke to the man through the window in a way that was meant to be calming without being condescending, the same tone he used with Levi during thunder, steady and unhurried. When the

tow truck came, he walked back and helped the driver get the car hooked up, and guided two lanes of traffic around the scene until things were moving again. He hadn’t thought about why he was doing it. It was raining, and it needed to be done. The man had taken his hand before the tow truck left.

He’d gripped it with both of his and said, without explaining what he meant, “One day, what you are will come back to you.” Dominic had assumed it was an old man’s gratitude, the kind of thing people say when they’re unsettled and want to say something that feels equal to what they’re feeling. He’d thought about it occasionally in the years since, but without any expectation attached to it.

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