Chapter 334: Complication

He paused.

"She would have found this very complicated," he said. "This lunch. This conversation. She would have had specific thoughts about it that she would have said directly and then she would have found a way to let it be what it was rather than what she’d decided it should be." He held Sophie’s gaze. "She was better at that than most people. Letting things be what they were."

Sophie was quiet for a moment.

"She sounds like she was extraordinary," she said. Quietly.

"Yes," said Sean. "She was."

He glanced at Richard.

Richard was looking at the table with the expression of someone who had been handed something that had no appropriate response and was not going to manufacture one.

The restaurant moved around them.

After a while Richard looked up.

"Can I ask you something," he said.

"Yes," said Sean.

"The research you did," said Richard. "Eleanor Vance. The Walsh section. The clinic." He held Sean’s gaze. "Are you going to contact Margaret Walsh."

Sean held his gaze.

"I don’t know yet," he said. "She’s seventy-six and she’s been living with a specific understanding of the world for a long time. Whether adding something to that understanding is something she’d want is something I don’t know how to assess from a distance."

"She knows you exist," said Richard.

Sean looked at him.

"The genealogy report from 2019," said Richard. "I told her. Not through the clinic. Directly. I wrote her a letter." He paused. "I wanted her to know that Catherine’s son was alive and that he was." He stopped. "I told her what I knew about you. Which wasn’t much then. But I wanted her to know."

Sean sat with that.

Margaret Walsh knew he existed.

Had known since 2019.

"She hasn’t contacted me," said Sean.

"No," said Richard. "She replied to my letter. She said." He paused. "She said she was glad to know Catherine’s son was alive and that she hoped he was building something worth his time." He held Sean’s gaze. "She didn’t say more than that. She’s not someone who says more than she means."

’She’s not someone who says more than she means,’ Sean thought.

’That’s where Catherine got it.’

He looked at Richard.

"I’ll write to her," he said. "When I’m ready. That one is on my own timeline."

"Of course," said Richard.

Sophie was watching this exchange with the full attention.

"She’ll write back," said Sophie. "She’s been waiting too."

Both Richard and Sean looked at her.

She picked her fork back up. "I’m just saying."

—-

They stayed for an hour and a half.

The conversation moved through various things. Not all of them significant. Some of them the ordinary texture of three people finding out what they were to each other across a restaurant table.

Richard asked about Sean’s studies. Not as performance. Genuinely, the way parents asked, the specific investment in the answer. He asked about the Vertex situation, having read the Sarah Coleman piece, and his questions were the right questions, the ones that went to the actual thing rather than the surface. He had thirty years of real estate development behind him and he understood what had been at stake.

Sophie asked six of her remaining questions in the order she’d apparently ranked them by relevance and then held the seventh for exactly twelve minutes before asking it.

The seventh question was: "Will you come to dinner. Not today. When you’re ready. Just dinner."

Sean looked at her.

"Yes," he said. "When I’m ready."

"Okay," she said.

At two fifteen Richard excused himself briefly. The specific excuse of someone who needed a moment.

Sophie watched him go and then looked at Sean.

"Thank you," she said.

"For what specifically," he said.

"For coming," she said. "And for the thing you said about her. About being accurate. He needed to hear that from you. He’s been imagining who she was from very little information for a very long time and you just gave him something real." She paused. "He’s going to think about it for weeks."

"I know," said Sean.

She held his gaze.

"You’re doing okay," she said.

"You said that in the car," he said.

"I’m confirming it," she said. "The car assessment was preliminary. This is post-meeting."

"And," he said.

"Still okay," she said. "More okay than preliminary suggested."

He looked at her.

"Sophie," he said.

"Yeah."

"The seven questions," he said. "The ones you held."

"Six," she said. "I asked the seventh."

"The sixth then," he said. "Before the dinner question."

She thought back. "I asked whether you actually read financial filings at night for fun or whether that was journalist exaggeration."

"What did I say," he said.

"You said it was accurate and slightly more than fun," she said. She tilted her head. "Is that true."

"Yes," he said.

She looked at him with the direct evaluating quality that was entirely hers.

"You’re interesting," she said. Not a compliment exactly. Just an observation she was making about something she’d found.

"So are you," he said.

"I know," she said. "I come from interesting people apparently."

Richard came back and sat down and they ordered coffee they didn’t really need because none of them were ready for the lunch to end and the coffee was the socially acceptable version of admitting that.

They left at two forty-seven.

On the pavement outside Richard shook Sean’s hand. The direct professional version. Not overloaded with anything.

"Thursday lunch," he said.

"Thursday lunch," said Sean.

"Next time," said Richard. He didn’t make it a question.

"Next time," said Sean.

Richard said goodbye to Sophie, who hugged him with the natural ease of a daughter and a father who had had fifteen years of that specific gesture, and then Richard walked to his car and Sean and Sophie stood on the pavement.

James pulled up.

Sophie looked at Sean.

"Dinner," she said. "When you’re ready. No rush."

"I know," he said.

"But actually no rush," she said. "Not polite no rush. Actual no rush."

"Actual no rush," he said.

She nodded once.

"Thank you for including me," she said. The direct version. Nothing layered over it.

"You started it," he said.

She looked at him with the expression that was slightly surprised and completely pleased.

"I did," she said.

James opened the door.

Sophie got in.

Sean got in after her and they drove in the comfortable quiet of two people who had done something significant together and had come out on the other side of it the way they’d gone in, as themselves.

He paid for the lunch when the card charge processed through his phone.

[340 dollars spent]

[Balance: $69,984,805]

[680 dollars received — 2x baseline]

[New Balance: $69,985,485]

The 2x baseline. Nobody bound at the table.

Some things didn’t generate rebate.

They just generated what they generated.

He looked at the city moving past the window.

He thought about a restaurant on Clement Street and a woman’s second paragraph and a man who had reorganized his desk twice.

He thought about Thursday lunch.

He thought about next time.

He put his phone in his pocket.

He dropped Sophie at her address.

She got out and turned back.

"Six questions," she said through the open door. "For next time."

"Six," he said.

She closed the door.

James pulled away.

In the car he texted Clara.

Thursday’s done. Tomorrow.

She replied in under a minute.

I’ve been thinking about it all day between board calls. A pause. Tomorrow Sean.

Tomorrow, he said.

He put his phone in his pocket.

The car moved toward home.