“Every day. I do the scheduling and the invoicing and the intake calls and I stay until nine, and I’m good at it, and I would do it for free, and none of that is friendship.

It’s restitution.” Hannah’s mouth went flat. “I’ve got a drawer too. Mine’s just got a job in it.”

We did not fix it that night.

She offered to resign, in the garage, and I said no immediately and she said, “Don’t do that. Don’t do the fast no. Think about it for a week,” which was the most honest thing either of us managed.

I thought about it for three weeks.

What I came back with was this: she stays, and she stops being my operations manager. She runs the intake and advocacy side, which she is better at than I am, and she reports to Samuel’s consulting arm and not to me, and her salary is set by a third party, and I have no authority over her employment whatsoever.