Chapter 2

Stanley stared at me for a few seconds. “I have a meeting tomorrow morning.”

“I have a client booked too.”

“Which of your projects can't have its time changed?”

I didn't answer. I just pushed the settlement statement a little closer to him.

His face darkened for a moment, but in the end he didn't make me reschedule.

At eight the next morning, he booked an escort appointment for his mother.

Pickup and drop-off, registration, prescriptions, sitting through the tests: four hundred and eighty dollars all in.

At noon, the payment screenshot landed on my phone.

“Four-eighty. All done.”

Two minutes later he added another line. “You always used to say one hospital run wasted a whole day. Turns out a little money solves it.”

I looked at it for a while, then set the phone face-down on the table.

The client's job was already half torn apart.

I ran the tape measure over it three times and still got one beam height wrong.

Seven years without a full project, and so much had changed.

The client handed me a new material. “Can we use this?”

I studied it a long time and could only say, “I'll go back and check the specs.”

He blinked, then smiled. “You wouldn't have said that before.”

I smiled too.

Coming off the site that afternoon, a dozen messages jumped up on my phone at once.

Stanley asked, “Friday's Leah's parent-teacher meeting. Go.”

I replied, “Friday's your turn.”

“I have a meeting in the afternoon. I'll have the driver take her.”

“A parent-teacher meeting isn't a drop-off.”

This time he took a long while to reply.

By the time I got home that night, dinner was already made.

The cleaner was a hundred and eighty; Leah had been brought home by the driver, a hundred and twenty.

Even his mother was in the group chat praising how attentive the young woman on the escort had been.

Nothing had slipped.

Stanley was clearly pleased. Over dinner he set his phone in front of me. “Seven-eighty.”

“What?”

“The escort, the cooking, picking up the kid.”

He let out a laugh. “You always said you couldn't do anything because of this family. I did the math today. Even if it costs seven or eight thousand extra a month, it's all solved.”

My chopsticks paused. “And?”

“And if you really wanted to work, you could have worked all along.”

I looked up at him.

Ten years ago, he was the one who said hiring help wasn't worth it.

After his mother's stroke, he was the one who said the company was just getting off the ground and he couldn't keep taking time off.

I didn't remind him of any of it. I just opened my phone and listed out everything coming up over the next month, item by item. : his mother's follow-up, Leah's parent-teacher meeting, the car's annual inspection, the property fee renewal, and the family dinner at the end of the month.

Half to me, half to him.

Stanley glanced over it and actually smiled. “See, why didn't we do this sooner? You handle your things, I handle mine, and wherever we need someone, we pay for it.”

I nodded. “Fine.”

Close to ten, he took a call and stepped out to the balcony with his phone.

Through the glass door I couldn't make out the words, only saw him nod several times in a row.

A dozen or so minutes later he came back in, clearly in a good mood.

“Big thing coming up at the company next month.”

I was still reworking the drawings. “What thing?”

“Not finalized yet.”

He picked up the settlement statement off the table and tapped it lightly, twice.

“But once it is, some things need to be sorted out ahead of time.”

I looked up. “What things?”

Stanley smiled.

“Money.”