I finished the vendor contract at four thirty-seven and felt the specific satisfaction of
completing something that had been sitting on my desk for three days and requiring
more careful attention than its modest appearance suggested.
Some things are like that. They look routine from the outside and contain, on close reading,
the kind of precision that makes the difference between a good outcome and a costly one.
I had been in the business long enough to never underestimate a vendor contract.
I closed my laptop. I picked up my coat. I went to collect Ethan from school, which I did
on Tuesdays when the afternoon allowed, which it more often did now that the crisis had
resolved and the work had settled into its normal shape.
He was waiting on the pavement outside with Noah, who had a
