Chapter 13: The One Who Asks

Domenic crossed the roof with his hands in his pockets and no hurry at all.

He stopped at the herb planter, looked at the spilled soil, and set a second pot of rosemary upright.

"Two minutes," he said. "That's how long it took you to go from 'I've loved you' to him leaving his keys."

"You were listening."

"I was behind a water tank. I could listen or announce myself, and you two were busy."

I closed my hand around Victor's keys.

"Seven years, Nad," Domenic said. "I asked you three times if there was anyone. You said no. You said it over a risotto."

"There wasn't anyone. There was a man who never said a word, and I never said one either."

"So you picked me."

"You asked," I said. "In the lobby, with a coffee and a plan. You always had a plan."

"And that's a flaw."

"It's a fact."

He sighed, the patient sigh of a man who expects the explanation to be accepted by the end of the sentence.

Then he took a folded page out of his jacket and handed it to me.

It was a memo.

It had three numbered options, and under each one, in his big slanted writing, a line that began with the word Risk.

I read it twice.

"You wrote this in the kitchen," I said.

"In the corner. Where Dad put me."

"You learned the format from me."

"You send it to everyone. It's in the shared drive."

Option 1 was: Wait two weeks, it's a hospital thing. Its risk was: She's stubborn.

Option 2 was: A public apology at Friday's all-hands. Its risk was: She says no.

Next to that he had written: Low.

Option 3 was: Dad tells the board why she left. Its risk was: Dad.

"You rated 'she says no' as low," I said.

"Is it not low?"

"Domenic, I said no in front of two hundred people with a canapé in my hand."

"Friday, nine o'clock, the roof of the plant," he said, taking the page back. "Come. You'll like it."

He started for the stairs, then turned.

"Oh. That envelope my assistant gave you, from the trust office? She says it's a pain to rebook. Hang on to it."

I felt my face go very still.

"It's filed," I said.

"Filed?"

"In a drawer. Filed in a drawer."

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