Part Seven: The Conversation in the Corridor
They sat in the family lounge at the end of the corridor, which was empty at this hour — two chairs and a small table and a window that looked out at the gray sky over the east wing roof.
A nurse had brought food without being asked: sandwiches and juice and a cup of tea that was meant for Richard but that Leo accepted when it was offered because he was cold and the tea was warm.
They didn’t talk for a while.
The talking started gradually, the way it did when two people had been through something together and were only now beginning to process what it had been.
Leo told him about Kowalska Street — the man choking, the woman, the movement she had made. He told it simply, without embellishment, in the way of someone reporting what they observed.
Richard listened.
“You remembered it,” he said. “For over a year.”
“I remember things that seem useful,” Leo said. “In case.”
“In case of what?”
Leo thought about it. “In case they’re needed. Things are usually needed eventually.”
Richard looked at him. “How long have you been on your own?”
“I’m not — my grandfather — “
“I know.” Not unkindly. “How long?”
A pause.
“Most of it,” Leo said. “He tries. But he’s old and he’s not well and the nights near the train tracks are — ” He stopped. He had said more than he intended. “We manage.”
Richard sat with this.
He had built things. He had employed thousands of people. He had structured his life around the principle that people who worked hard and had ability should have the opportunity to use it, and that providing that opportunity was both ethical and practical, because ability without opportunity was wasted in ways that cost everyone.
He looked at the boy across the small table, who had walked into a room full of specialists and pointed at the thing they had missed, and he made the calculation that he made when he recognized something worth investing in.
“I want to make you an offer,” he said. “Not because of what happened today, or not only because of it. But because of — ” He paused, finding the right words. “Because of what you are. Which is a person who notices what other people don’t. That matters. In any field. In medicine, in business, in any field you choose.”
Leo held his cup of tea.
“What kind of offer?” he said.
