She bothered you, he said. I’m sorry. She didn’t bother me. Ava’s voice was toneless in the way it was when she was saying something she hadn’t intended to say. She asked good questions. He lifted Mia carefully, her head falling against his shoulder in the loose way that only sleeping children do. I’ll see you in the morning. 8:00, Ava said.
7:55, he said, because the Singapore call summary needs time. She didn’t respond to that. But when he was at the door, she said, “Your daughter asked me what kind of computer I would want if I could build any one.” What did you say? I said I hadn’t thought about that in a long time. A pause. She told me I was working too hard.
Ethan looked at her over Mia’s head. Ava Sinclair was staring at her monitor, chin resting on one knuckle, and there was something in her face that he’d been in this office for 3 days and had not seen yet. Something that wasn’t armor. She’s usually right, he said. Good night, Ms. Sinclair. This time, she said it back before he reached the door.
Good night, Ethan. By the end of the first week, the unofficial betting pool in the office, which Jenna had neither started nor stopped, she was very clear about this, had collapsed. Not because Ethan had done anything spectacular, but because the spectacle of watching someone not collapse had begun to draw its own kind of attention.
He had walked into a 45-minute screaming session from a board member named Derek Thorne, who had the wrong meeting room and somehow made that Ava’s personal fault, and had quietly provided the correct meeting room information and a coffee to Thorne while Ava, standing 3 ft away with her jaw tight, recalibrated and got back to work.
He had intercepted a legal brief that was missing an exhibit, tracked down the paralegal responsible, received the corrected version, and had it on Ava’s desk before she knew it had been missing. He had told her once on Thursday afternoon that she was wrong about a scheduling conflict, just flatly, directly. “You’re wrong.
The Copenhagen call is at 2:00, not 3:00. Look at the timestamp.” She had looked. She had been wrong. She hadn’t thanked him, exactly, but she’d re-corrected the calendar herself, and the look she’d given him wasn’t irritation. Jenna caught him by the elevator at end of day Friday. “The board member who screamed at you yesterday,” she said, “Thorne, he came back to Ava’s office later and told her she should keep you.” She paused.
“Derek Thorne has told Ava to fire everyone else who’s ever worked here. He seemed like he was having a bad day.” “He’s always having a bad day, that’s the thing.” Jenna folded her arms. “You just didn’t make it worse.” Ethan pressed the elevator button. “Was that hard?” “The last 43 people, was that what happened? They made bad days worse?” “Most of them.
Some of them couldn’t handle her. Some of them were afraid of her. One guy” She stopped herself. “You know what? The important question is whether you know what you’re walking back into on Monday. Complicated week?” “There’s a government contract presentation Thursday, big one. Like career-defining big. She’s been working towards it for 2 years.
” Jenna looked at the elevator doors. “Victor Hale is co-presenting. He’s the COO. He’s been with her since the beginning.” “I’ve seen him in the calendar.” “Yeah, he comes in and out. He’s” She stopped again, and this time the pause had a different texture to it. “Something caught.” “He’s been here a long time.
” “Is he good at his job?” “He’s good at seeming good at his job.” She said it fast, like she’d been holding it. Then she looked away. “That’s probably nothing. Forget I said that.” “I’ll forget it,” Ethan said. But he didn’t forget it till Saturday morning. He took Mia to the park three blocks from their apartment, the one with the old climbing structure she liked because it had a pole she’d been trying to slide down since she was six.
She made it down clean this time, landing in the sand with both feet and her arms out, and looked up at him with an expression of absolute triumph. “Did you see that?” “I saw it.” “You weren’t looking.” “I was 100% looking.” “You were on your phone.” He put his phone in his pocket. “Not anymore.” She climbed back up.
He sat on the bench and watched her move through the structure, methodical, testing each handhold, planning two steps ahead. She’d always been like that. Even at four, before everything happened, she’d been someone who had a plan. He thought about Jenna’s voice. He’s good at seeming good. He thought about the way Victor Hale had moved through the office on Thursday afternoon.
Easy, familiar, greeting people by name, lingering near Ava’s closed door long enough to be noticed before knocking. There was something performative in it that Ethan couldn’t quite put a name to, a quality of being seen, of making sure everyone in the room registered his presence.
Most people, you didn’t notice that. Most people who are comfortable in a space just occupied it. Victor Hale seemed to be doing something slightly different, not occupying, reminding. “Dad?” “Yeah.” “Did the lady at your work build the computer thing she was talking about?” “The one she forgot about?” Ethan looked up. Mia was sitting at the top of the climbing structure, legs dangling.
Her hair was coming out of her braid. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask her.” “You should ask her.” Mia considered this. She seemed like she stopped doing some things because she got busy, and then she just kept being busy. He He about Ava’s office, the precision of it, the efficiency, the complete absence of anything that didn’t serve a function.
No personal photographs. One small plant on the windowsill that looked like it was surviving more through stubbornness than care. The way she’d looked at Mia’s diagrams, not with the polite interest adults usually performed for children, but with actual attention. “Maybe,” he said, “come down before you fall.” “I’m not going to fall.”
