Rhea's fingers found the edge of her saucer. "And what did you almost say?"
"That I'm tired of being the son who stays close enough to be useful and far enough to be blamed for not being useful enough."
Arlo set their mugs down—blue for Declan, cream for Rhea—and retreated with the grace of a man who had watched marriages survive and fail from behind an espresso machine and preferred not to narrate either.
Rhea wrapped both hands around her mug. "Did Brenna bring the New Haven binder again?"
Declan's head tipped. "You knew about the binder."
"Brenna texted me last week. She said, and I quote, 'Make sure he doesn't talk himself out of a future.' She attached a spreadsheet."
"Of course she did."
"She also said your father cries when he thinks no one is looking. Which is either true or a weapon. With Brenna those can be the same tool."
Declan drank. The coffee was good enough to hurt. "New Haven wants an answer Friday. Not a soft maybe. A start date and a housing plan. Twenty-two months. Lead on the south-wing retrofit. The pay would clear the last of your program loans and put a real dent in Cormac's medical balance."
Rhea nodded once, carefully, as if the information were a shelf she had to test before setting weight on it. "And you were going to tell me today."
"I was going to tell you today," he said. "After coffee. Like a coward with a ritual."
"Coffee is not cowardice."
"Lately it has been."
They sat with that. The rain thickened, then thinned, then thickened again. A student at the counter laughed too loudly at a joke that did not deserve it. Declan watched Rhea's face the way he watched structural drawings for the hairline crack nobody else wanted to admit was there.
"There's something else," Rhea said.
"There usually is."
She unzipped the trench pocket, drew out the folded email, and set it between them on the table. The paper had a soft curl from being carried close to her body. Declan read the subject line, then the first paragraph, then the deadline, and felt the room tilt a degree to the left.
"You won it," he said.
"We won it. The department. The city. My name is on the project lead line."
"Rhea."