Part Eight: What Was Offered
Richard was specific, because he was always specific. He did not make vague gestures at better futures. He was a man who had learned that vagueness was a form of cowardice dressed as generosity, and he had worked it out of himself over years of learning that what people needed was not possibility but structure.
He outlined what he could offer: a home, a room in his house in the northern district, a good school, food, medical care for Leo and for his grandfather if that was something that would make the decision easier. Not as charity — he said this with some emphasis — but as an arrangement, the way he structured all his arrangements, with clarity about what was being offered and what was expected in return, which in this case was nothing except that Leo apply himself to whatever he was given the opportunity to apply himself to.
He said this cleanly, without sentiment.
Leo listened the same way.
When Richard finished, Leo was quiet for a while. He looked out the window at the roof and the gray sky above it.
“My grandfather,” he said.
“I meant what I said. If he needs medical attention, that’s arranged.”
“He’s proud,” Leo said. “He wouldn’t want — “
“Then we’ll arrange it in a way that respects his pride. That’s a logistics problem. I’m good at logistics problems.”
Leo almost smiled. It was the first near-smile of the conversation and it changed his face slightly, made him younger and older at the same time.
He thought.
Richard waited, because he had learned — in business and in life — that some decisions required the space to be made properly, and that rushing them produced agreements that didn’t hold.
