Chapter 7
Sam
After the morning meeting, Dana followed me into my office. She was unusually quiet.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you all right?”
“What do you mean?”
She crossed her arms and looked at me thoughtfully. “I don’t think you heard a word of what was said in that meeting just now.”
I turned to face her.
“What?”
She was right of course. It was our weekly development meeting. Our most senior developers, project managers and salespeople were there. They reported back, discussed new deals and possible problems. I had been distracted but I thought I had hidden it well enough. Dana knew me, though, perhaps too well.
“You’ve been like this since we came back from New York,” she said. “Did anything happen there?”
Dana usually had a keen radar and I trusted her completely, but she was wrong on this. Still, it didn’t hurt to have her thinking this was all about New York.
“I’m not sure about the HRS deal,” I said, with a sigh.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, are our lawyers sure about the paperwork? There are no loopholes or secret clauses?”
“Does this have anything to do with that legal head of theirs?” she asked, and I picked up something in her voice. Had she noticed something about Lori?
“I don’t trust her,” I said, looking out the window. “I think we should double-check the contract, be sure they’re not trying to screw us somehow.”
She nodded.
“Rees-Smythe is a crafty old bugger. There is a reason he wanted to meet me, and I’m not convinced I know entirely what it is.”
“They tried to negotiate us down quite a bit,” Dana mused. “Nic wouldn’t budge, though. But if you’d feel better, I’ll have our legal team go over the deal again.”
I nodded and thought she’d leave but she hesitated. “So, that’s it?”
I sat down and opened my laptop, got stuck in my email. She eventually left. I tried to concentrate on work, on a report I was working on, but I felt my attention wandering. I struggled for the rest of the day, drinking numerous cups of coffee to try and sharpen my thinking. I left late, as usual and at home, found Ethan had already had his bath. Natalie brought him into the kitchen and left us to spend some time together.
As usual, I found it trying to deal with him.
Ethan did not look up when he was spoken to and barely seemed to register my presence. Even when sitting at the table with me, he was preoccupied with his hands or his cutlery. I tried talking to him, engaging him, as the psychologist had recommended but I gave up rather quickly. I was glad Natalie had left us alone. I wouldn’t want her seeing how bad I was at dealing with my own son. I wolfed down my supper and took him up to his room, calling out to Natalie to put him to bed.
“Daddy?” he said as I put him down on the carpet.
I couldn’t believe my ears.
He’d barely looked at me all evening. I didn’t even know if he’d registered my presence. I could count on one hand the times he had addressed me like this.
“Yes, buddy?” I squatted down on the carpet next to him.
“Play,” he said, pushing some toys towards me. They were little plastic soldiers, and he was attacking them with the Spiderman doll Skye had bought him. I didn’t really know what he was expecting me to do but I pushed the soldiers around, making noises to simulate shooting and being injured. All the while, I couldn’t help marveling at this new development. Ethan preferred to play alone, he almost never interacted with anyone. I wanted to talk to Natalie about it, but we had established a routine where we hardly spoke to each other. If one of us was in the room, the other would leave. We mentioned things in passing, or almost as an aside, avoiding proper face-to-face conversations.
As soon as she arrived in the room, I kissed Ethan good night. For a moment, I leaned down to hug him and even though it was awkward, I felt I had to say something. “I liked our game,” I said to him. “We should play again, maybe tomorrow?”