Not quite amusement, but something adjacent to it. and brief. That's not what she thinks. She decided you were interesting because you have shoes that make noise. I can take them off. That's not how it works with 8-year-olds, he said.
You're already categorized. Sloan looked at the table. I read your full file, she said. Not just the incident reports, everything. Caleb didn't answer.
He put a lid on the pot and turned around and leaned against the counter and crossed his arms, not defensively. It just seemed to be how he stood when he was listening. I know that doesn't mean anything specific, she said. I'm not trying to make it mean something. I I just I want you to know that I actually looked and I understand what I threw away.
What you threw away? He repeated, not mocking the phrasing. Just repeating it the way people do when a word lands strangely. What the company threw away? She corrected herself.
For years. Not just me. Yeah, he said. For years. She looked up at him.
I also read about your wife. His expression shifted, not closing off, but steadying, the way a person steadies when something is approached that they're accustomed to carrying in a specific way. That's in the file. HR records, length of single parent status. It came up in a review I initiated.
He was quiet for a moment. Okay, he said. I'm not bringing it up because I think it explains your work record, she said carefully. I'm bringing it up because I said something that morning about people learning to manage their personal lives. And I want you to know that I understand now how obscene that was given what I know.
Caleb said nothing for a moment. He looked at the floor and then back at her. You know what what the worst part of that was? He said it wasn't just that it was wrong. It was that there were people in that hanger who knew who knew what I was doing, what I'd been doing for years.
And they had to stand there and watch you say it. Sloan felt the weight of that land somewhere precise and uncomfortable inside her chest. I know, she said. I'm not asking you to feel bad about it indefinitely, he said. That doesn't do anything useful, but I want you to understand what that room felt like from where I was standing and from where they were standing.
I'm trying to, she said. That's why I'm here. There was a pause. From deeper in the house, the children's program shifted to something with a different theme song. Then small footsteps and Mia appeared in the kitchen doorway in socks and pajama pants and a shirt that said, "Science is for everyone in block letters." She looked at Sloan with the undisguised assessment of a child who has not yet learned that staring is impolite.
You're the loud shoes lady, Mia said. That's me, Sloan said. Dad says you fired him. Mia, Caleb said, I did. Sloan said she looked at the girl and didn't soften it.
I made a mistake and I fired him and I'm here because I was wrong and I wanted to say so. Mia seemed to consider this with the seriousness of someone evaluating testimony. Did you say sorry? I did. What did he say?
Mia, Caleb said with a particular parental firmness that was clearly trying to hold back something that might otherwise become laughter. I'm just asking, Mia said. He said he knew I meant it. Sloan said. Mia looked at her father.
Did you go finish your show? Caleb said. Mia went, not entirely satisfied, back down the hallway. A moment later, the television volume adjusted. Sloan looked back at Caleb.
He was watching the empty doorway with that expression she'd seen on the driveway, the immediate, unguarded kind, the kind that doesn't perform itself for anyone. She had seen that expression in conference rooms and on stages and across negotiating tables for years, on people who'd spent decades learning to produce it on command. She had never once seen it look the way it looked on him, which was to say like it actually meant something. She's a good kid, Sloan said. She's a weird kid, Caleb said.