Outside the window the yard was busy. Two crews going out. We had the Hadley job and the new commercial fit-out in Framingham that had come in last month, the kind of contract that six months ago would have stretched the company thin. Now we had the people. Dave had been quietly hiring since summer, good guys, a couple fresh out of trade school and one older fellow named Garrett who'd been doing finish carpentry for thirty years and had the hands to prove it.
The expansion had been Ben's idea, funded by his cut of the Route 9 sale, built on my spreadsheets and Dave's execution. That was roughly how most things worked around here.
The Route 9 LLC had dissolved in July, the same week the sale closed. Lucia had gotten her two hundred thousand, same as agreed. The bank had gotten the rest, and what remained after that had been split between Ben and me and the crew — Collins, Frank, Walt, and the others who'd shown up in the cold. I'd filed the dissolution paperwork myself, which felt appropriate: one last document to catalog, one last record to close.
Collins appeared in the doorway at nine, still in his jacket, holding a paper bag from the bakery down the street. He set it on my desk as a peace offering, or possibly a bribe.
"I have a question about the Hadley invoicing," he said.
"The answer is no, you cannot expense the lunch you bought yourself last Tuesday." I didn't look up. "Or the Tuesday before that."
He pointed at the bag. "Almond croissant."
"Still no."
He grabbed a chair, flipped it around. "How's the new place?"
"Good." I pulled up the invoice. "We finished unpacking last weekend."
"Ben let you organize his kitchen?"
"Ben's kitchen is now my kitchen." I glanced at him. "He's adjusting."
"How's he adjusting?"
"He moved the coffee mugs back to the wrong cabinet twice. I moved them back twice. We haven't discussed it." I returned to the screen. "Go do your job."
He grabbed the paper bag but left the almond croissant, which meant he did actually want something and hadn't asked yet, and headed for the door. Then he stopped.
"I named the truck," he said.
I looked up. Collins had bought a truck with his share of the Route 9 payout. Good one, late model. He'd also bought his mother a new dishwasher, made some questionable decisions involving his college roommate and a set of golf clubs, and then sat down with a financial advisor and put the rest somewhere sensible. He'd told me about the financial advisor unprompted, with the pride of a man who had surprised himself.
"Diane," he said. "After Frank's wife. She's tough and she's never wrong."
I stared at him.
"Don't tell Frank," he added.
"I sure won't."
He disappeared into the yard.
Dave appeared in the doorway minutes later, blueprints under his arm. "Framingham permit office needs the updated site plan."
"Already sent it. Approved this morning."
He looked at me over his reading glasses, then made a sound that in Dave's register passed for impressed and disappeared.
The office settled back into its working quiet. Phones, keyboards, the distant sound of a saw from the yard. Iworked through the morning the way I'd been working through mornings for three months now.
The house on Oak Street had sold in October. I'd packed eight years into cardboard boxes and been surprised by how little of it I'd wanted to keep. The good dishes and the books. The photo albums, though I hadn't opened them yet. And the glazed ceramic bluebird from Ruth's kitchen windowsill, which she'd pressed into my hands on moving day without explanation, and which now sat above my desk catching the afternoon light.
I hadn't asked her why. I thought I understood.
Ben appeared in the doorway just before noon, jacket on, keys in hand.
"Hadley site," he said. "Back by three."
