I'm the facilities director for Meridian Group. We're a commercial property management company out of Nashville. I got your name from Amelia Carter. Isaiah stopped chewing. We've got a restoration project down in Murfreesboro, historic commercial building ground floor needs structural work on some original era wood framing.
It's about 3 weeks of work for the right contractor. We've been having trouble finding someone who understands how to work with old growth wood and isn't going to rip everything out and start over. Miss Carter gave you my name, Isaiah said. Called me this morning, actually. Said you were the best she'd seen.
A pause. She also said, and I'm quoting her, that you were the kind of contractor who looked at old wood and saw what could still be saved instead of what should be thrown away, which is exactly what we need for this building. Isaiah looked at the fence in front of him. At the new posts standing beside the old ones that had been worth keeping. "I'd need to see the building. " He said.
"Of course. Can you do Thursday? " He did the math in his head. He'd finish Amelia's fence by Wednesday. Thursday was open. "Yeah. " He said.
"Thursday works. " He sat on the tailgate for a while after the call ended, looking at nothing in particular, feeling something he hadn't felt in a while. Not excitement, exactly. Something quieter than that. Something that felt like a door opening in a hallway he'd almost stopped walking down. He didn't call anyone about it.
He went back to work, but he was almost smiling, which Ethan would have clocked immediately and interrogated extensively, and it was probably good that Ethan wasn't there yet. He drove the next post and let the feeling be what it was. By 3:00, when the school bus dropped Ethan at the end of Harlan Ridge Road, and the boy appeared on foot through the oak trees with his backpack and his soccer ball. Isaiah was working the final stretch of new post installation. And within 10 minutes of Ethan's arrival, Grace was outside.
Isaiah watched them from the corner of his eye without appearing to watch them, which was a skill he'd been developing since Ethan was old enough to find being watched mortifying. They weren't talking much. That was the thing about those two. They seemed most comfortable in parallel. Grace had her book, and Ethan had his ball, and they were each doing their own thing in the same general vicinity, and every few minutes one of them would say something and the other would respond, and then they'd go back to their separate activities.
It was the kind of company that wasn't performing itself. Isaiah found it genuinely nice to watch. At one point, Ethan said something that made Grace put her book down entirely and look at him. "Say that again. " She said. "I said your mom looks tired. " Ethan said, matter-of-fact the way he said most things.
Grace didn't answer immediately. "Yeah. " She said. "She hasn't been sleeping. My dad hasn't been sleeping either, for like" Ethan counted on his fingers. "A long time. " "Why? " "Money stuff, I think.
He doesn't tell me, but I can tell. " Grace looked toward the fence where Isaiah was working. "My mom doesn't tell me things either. She thinks protecting me from stuff is the same as helping me. It's not. " Ethan considered this seriously. "No, it's not. " Isaiah heard all of this.
He didn't react. He just kept working and made a mental note that his son was turning out to be a more perceptive human being than he had any right to take credit for, and that Sandra, wherever she was, was probably very satisfied about that. The late afternoon went cold fast, the way October did. Isaiah was sealing the final new post installations of the day when he heard the front door open again and the quality of the air on the property changed the way it always changed when David Mercer was in it. He didn't look up.
David came around the side of the house and walked toward the fence with his hands in his jacket pockets. He wasn't walking toward Isaiah specifically. He was walking toward Grace. "Gracie. " He said in a voice that was warmer than the one he'd used with Isaiah that morning, but it was a manufactured warmth. Isaiah heard the difference.
Grace looked up from her book. Something in her face closed slightly the way a window closes against a draft. "Dad? " "Hey, baby. You look good. David crouched down to her level, though she was sitting in the grass, and the crouching felt like a performance of casualness.
How's school? Fine. Your mom says you've been struggling with your English class. A pause. It's fine now.
She told me that 3 weeks ago. She says things are fine when they're not fine. You know that. Ethan had gone very still with his soccer ball in his hands, watching. And Isaiah noticed that and caught Ethan's eye and gave him a look that said, "Not our business, but also stay calm. " Because Ethan had Sandra's instinct to insert himself where people were hurting, and this was not a situation for that.
"I'm fine, Dad. " Grace said with a flatness that wasn't rudeness. It was distance. Carefully maintained. "I just want to check in. " David said. "I'm your father.
That's my job. " "Your job," Grace said, "is usually in Nashville. " Silence. David stood back up. He glanced at Isaiah, who had not stopped working during any of this, and then he looked back at Grace. "I'll be around more," he said. "Things are going to look different soon.
I want us to talk about some options. " "What options? " "Just options. Things we've been discussing. " He said it like she should know what he meant. "About where you're living. " Grace's book went slowly to the grass. "I live here. " "I know where you live, Gracie. " "I live here," she said. And this time there was a quality to her voice that wasn't a teenager's voice anymore.
It was the voice of someone who has been listening to adults be careful with their words for long enough to be entirely done with careful words. "With Mom. " "This is my home, and I'm not interested in options. " David looked at her for a moment. Then he put his jacket collar up against the cold. "I'll call you tonight," he said and walked back toward the house. Grace picked up her book.
She didn't read it. She held it and stared at the fence and Ethan to his tremendous credit said absolutely nothing for almost a full minute. Then he said quietly, "Your dad's kind of intense. " And Grace exhaled this short helpless exhale that was almost a laugh. "Yeah. " she said. "You have no idea. " And somehow that small exchange, that tiny release was more useful than anything a grown adult could have said to her right then.
Isaiah kept working. By the time he packed up for the evening, the eastern fence section was fully posted and partially railed and two days more of work would see it sealed and solid and done. He was loading the truck when Amelia came out and stood nearby in the way she'd been doing, not interrupting, just present. "He came by again. " she said. "I know. " "Did he talk to you? " "No, he talked to Grace. " Her face went through three things at once.
"What did he say? " "He mentioned options. " She shut it down. He closed the tailgate. "She's sharp, your girl. " Amelia looked toward where Grace had been sitting in the grass. "She's too much of herself in certain ways and not enough in others. " she said, which was the most specific and honest thing she'd said about her daughter in the time he'd known her. "That sounds about right for 16. " Isaiah said.
"She'll be 16 in 3 months. " "Close enough. " Amelia wrapped her arms around herself. "David's attorney called my attorney today. He's filing for a formal custody review. He's arguing through his attorney, which is how he argues everything, that my professional instability and extended absences from home are affecting Grace's well-being. " Isaiah said nothing. He let the silence do what it needed to do.
"The meeting happens in 6 weeks, Amelia said. The board vote, David knows about it. He timed the custody filing deliberately. If the vote removes me and I lose the company, it supports his argument in family court. If I fight the board and it gets messy and public, it still supports his argument.