Chapter two
Arthur
My office door stays open today because Henry is with me.
I intended to bring him to the office and set him up in the conference room with his tablet to minimise disruptions.
Except ten-year-olds don't like conference rooms.
I hear him down the hall now. His voice low and animated, punctuated by Janet's polite hum.
She's my secretary. Sixty-three, unflappable, terrifying to new hires. And she’s offering the sort of courteous response you give a child who is explaining something in painstaking detail.
"—and then the boss has three phases, but you can't use ranged attacks in the second one because of the shield regeneration mechanic—"
"So what do you do?"
"You have to switch to melee and time your dodges perfectly or you just get obliterated."
I glance at my watch. Ten-forty.
He's been talking for twelve minutes straight.
Irritation flickers through me.
I tamp it down and redirect my attention to the acquisition report spread across my desk in neat, ordered stacks.
He's safe. He's occupied. Janet is handling the situation.
Parenting, like everything else in my life, is manageable when I approach it with the right methodology and clear objectives.
That's the equation I've learned to live by over the past seven years. The framework that's allowed us to function.
Provide structure. Provide resources. Ensure proper supervision. Minimize disruption to essential operations.
Catherine handled the emotional components—the bedtime stories, the scraped knee consultations, the inexplicable tears that seemed to require specific responses I could never decode.
She possessed an intuitive understanding of Henry's needs that I observed but never quite comprehended.
She's been gone seven years now.
We've adapted. We've found our rhythm, our sustainable patterns.
I look down at my paper, but the numbers on the page refuse to settle into coherent patterns despite my attempts to focus.
I read the same paragraph about projected quarterly earnings three times before admitting that I'm distracted. The profit margins blur together, revenue projections becoming meaningless strings of data that my mind can't seem to process with its usual analytical precision.
Henry's voice drifts down the hall again, quieter now but still animated, still explaining some intricate detail of his digital world.
Janet responds with something I can't make out. She is probably asking the sort of follow-up questions that keep children talking. Whatever she said is followed by his bright, unguarded laugh.
The sound catches in my chest.
I know—because my staff has been gently hinting for months—that Henry needs more of me.
More time. More attention. MoresomethingI've never been good at quantifying.
Janet mentioned it last quarter when I asked her to arrange Henry's birthday party. "He'd probably just like an afternoon with you, Mr. Dupree."
