“Come on, baby. Let’s get you a cookie.”
I steered my daughter to the dessert table, sat her on a lounger, and put a lemon square in her hand. She ate it slowly, swinging her feet, calm again as if nothing had happened.
But I couldn’t shake it. That pallor. The way he’d almost dropped her.
“Grief,” I muttered to myself. “Kids and grief. That’s all it is.”
Except it wasn’t the kind of shock a strange comment from a child should cause. It was the kind of shock a person shows when someone has, without meaning to, said the exact thing they’ve been afraid to hear.
Rachel’s voice from the office kitchen curled back through my head.
What that might be doing to your standing at the firm.
I stood up. I told Mia to stay right there with Mrs. Peterson from accounting, and I walked toward the corner where Harold had disappeared.
My boss was standing near the pergola with Benjamin, his business partner, both of them holding fresh drinks. Harold had his back to me. I slowed, not wanting to interrupt, waiting for a natural break so I could apologize once more.
