Yes.
I will survive.
That is not the question.
Mish leans closer, voice dropping. “For what it’s worth, he sees the job differently now.”
I look at her.
“He sees you differently too,” she adds.
My pulse gives one stupid kick.
“Mish.”
She holds up a hand. “Not like that. I mean professionally.”
“Right.”
“He came in thinking this was punishment. Now he watches. He listens before he writes. He doesn’t treat any of it like content.”
The relief I feel is embarrassing.
Not because she is wrong.
Because she is right, and because that should be all I need from this.
A good article. Better understanding. Work seen properly.
That was the point.
That was always the point.
“I know,” I say.
Mish’s expression softens in the smallest possible way. “That matters.”
“Yes.”
“And it matters because you made him understand it.”
I do not know what to do with that.
So I make my voice dry.
“I did throw a lot of hose at him.”
“Educationally.”
“Obviously.”
Mish smiles and walks away, leaving me with the deeply inconvenient knowledge that she has said something kind and I have no useful place to put it.
The station settles into the strange suspended rhythm of a final night. Nobody says it out loud, but everyone knows AJ’s placement ends after this shift. Kev mentions that the biscuits are now safer. Dan says the kitchen will be messier by Monday. Mish says she is hiding the label maker before AJ develops opinions about filing. AJ takes all of it with that familiar, increasingly dangerous ease.
He belongs just enough that his leaving will leave a gap.
Not a large one.
