“But you have a reason to audit.”
“I know.”
“And a car someone desperately wanted sold.”
Katherine looked toward the photograph of her parents.
“What was my father trying to do?”
James considered.
“Maybe he didn't finish.”
“That would be unlike him.”
“Death tends to interrupt.”
She gave him a sharp look.
He immediately regretted it.
“Sorry.”
Katherine stared.
Then unexpectedly laughed.
It came out broken.
Half laugh.
Half grief.
James sat beside her.
Not touching.
Close enough.
After a moment she whispered:
“He hated unfinished work.”
“Most fathers do.”
“You?”
James smiled faintly.
“I have a twelve-year-old.”
“My entire life is unfinished work.”
Katherine looked toward him.
The silence changed.
Less investigative.
More personal.
She asked:
“Where's her mother?”
James looked at the concrete.
“Died six years ago.”
Katherine softened.
“I'm sorry.”
“Cancer.”
“Fast.”
He looked toward her.
“She was thirty-five.”
No clever line followed.
Katherine understood the exhaustion behind his eyes suddenly.
Not just mechanic tired.
Life tired.
“What was her name?”
“Anna.”
“Olivia remembers her?”
“Yes.”
“Enough.”
James rubbed his hands together.
“She remembers the best parts.”
“That worries me sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Because grief edits.”
“Eventually you remember the person people needed, not the person they actually were.”
Katherine looked at her father's letter.
“I think I've been doing that.”
James said nothing.
She continued.
“My father was brilliant.”
“Generous.”
“Impossible.”
“He could freeze a room by looking at people.”
“He forgot birthdays.”
“He worked through my mother’s last Thanksgiving because a plant was behind schedule.”
Katherine swallowed.
“And now everybody talks about him like he was a saint.”
James nodded.
“Dead people get excellent publicists.”
She laughed.
Then cried.
It happened so quickly she looked annoyed by her own face.
James offered a clean shop towel from his pocket.
Katherine stared at it.
“Absolutely not.”
He looked offended.
“This is clean.”
“It lives in your coveralls.”
“Classist.”
She used a tissue from her handbag instead.
James smiled.
When she calmed, he said:
“Let's get these boxes copied properly.”
“You trust lawyers?”
“No.”
“Then why properly?”
“Because whatever this is, you're going to need people who can explain it without grease on their hands.”
She looked at him.
“There's something attractive about a man who knows his limitations.”
“Careful.”
“Engine might not be the only thing overheating?”
James smiled.
“I was hoping you'd remember.”
Katherine stood.
For one second they were too close.
She could smell soap beneath engine oil.
He looked at her mouth.
She noticed.
Neither moved.
Then Daniel Cho arrived with two forensic accountants.
Moment gone.
Probably better.
Katherine was not entirely sure she believed that.
The audit began quietly.