Part 6

He was doing the crossword.

“My dad would like to see the owner,” I said.

Harvey set down his pencil.

A slow grin spread across his face.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve been waiting seven years for this.”

He got up, which took a minute with his knees, and followed me out.

Dad recognized him immediately.

I saw it on his face.

Harvey Hagadorn.

The help.

The man who’d rewired his basement.

“Mr. Hagadorn,” Dad said, and stuck out his hand. “Martin. We met years ago. You did some work on our house.”

He went on.

“I’m here with my three oldest—well, three of my kids. They’ve applied for your office positions, and frankly, I think they’re overqualified, but I’d like to discuss what you might be able to offer them in terms of a management track.”

Harvey shook his hand.

He held onto it a little long.

Then he said, “Oh, I don’t own anything anymore. I just sweep.”

And he pointed his thumb over his shoulder, straight at me.

“That’s him.”

Nobody said anything.

Somewhere behind me, Silas dropped a wrench.

My dad looked at Harvey, then at me, then at the sign on the building, then back at me.

His mouth opened a little, and then it closed.

“He bought the place last year,” Harvey went on, in no hurry at all. “Eighteen electricians now, four apprentices, three months of backlog. We’re doing a good piece of that data center down by Des Moines. You’ve probably seen it on the news.”

He patted my dad on the shoulder, very friendly.

“Smartest kid I ever trained.”

Then he went back inside to finish his crossword.

I’d imagined that moment a lot of ways over seven years.

I’d never imagined it would be this quiet.

Just the wind, and my dad standing in the gravel, looking like somebody had handed him a test in a language he didn’t speak.

“Come on in,” I said. “Arla made the good coffee.”

We did the interviews in the break room.

My three siblings sat on one side.

Dad sat at the end, because of course he did.

Justin answered most of my questions for the other two, the way he always had.

Project management software, process optimization.

Alexis said, very honestly, that she didn’t know anything about electrical work, but she learned fast, and she looked at me when she said it.

Then I put three sheets of paper on the table.

“What’s this?” Justin asked.

“It’s the aptitude test we give apprentices,” I said. “Algebra, reading comprehension, some mechanical reasoning. Forty-five minutes.”

Dad cleared his throat.

“They applied for the office positions.”

“I know,” I said. “Everybody at this shop starts in the field. You can’t estimate a job you don’t understand. I started in the field. Harvey started in the field. If they want to work here, they start where I started.”

“And what does an apprentice make?” Dad asked.

“Nineteen dollars an hour,” I said. “A little more than I started at. Raises every six months if they pass their classes.”

Dad laughed.

The short, dry laugh he used when a student gave a wrong answer.

“Nolan, these are three college graduates. Justin was a senior developer. You’re asking them to take a test for a job you could do with a high school diploma.”

“I’m not asking,” I said. “I’m offering. They can say no.”

“This is beneath them,” Dad said.

And Justin stood up.

He didn’t look at me.

He looked at Dad like he was waiting to be told he was right.

Dad nodded.

Justin said, “I’m not crawling around in attics. I have a degree.”

And he walked out the front door and got in the van.

Caitlin looked at the door, then at the test, then at Alexis.

Alexis picked up the pencil.

Caitlin sat there for another few seconds.

Then she picked up hers, too.

My dad just stared at them.

I set a timer and left them alone.

Dad followed me into the hallway.

“What are you doing?” he said, low so the girls wouldn’t hear. “Is this some kind of revenge? Is that what this is?”

“It’s a job, Dad.”

“You’re humiliating them.”

“No,” I said. “Their degrees didn’t do that, and I didn’t, either. A computer did. I’m the only person who’s offered them a paycheck in a year.”

He started to say something and stopped.

And then I said the thing I’d been carrying around for two years.

“You know your building had its panels replaced summer before last?”

He blinked.

He didn’t know why I was asking.

“I suppose. Facilities did some work over the summer. Why?”

“Third floor, east hall, right outside your office. Panel 3B.”

I reached into my hoodie pocket and pulled out the fine-tip marker I carry everywhere.

“Every breaker in that panel is labeled in tiny block letters. Every panel in that building. That was me. Ten weeks. You walked past my handwriting every day for two years, Dad. You just never looked.”

He didn’t say anything.

His face went a strange color, sort of gray, and he put his hand flat against the wall next to him, like the hallway had tilted a little.

I went back to my office and closed the door.