The west bay of Kellworth & Vandemere is the only room in the building that stays warm after eight, because Sorel keeps the drawing lamps burning until the last revision is signed. Tonight there are three over the Ashwater crossing, the rain is going sideways at the window, and the invitation you put on his board at four o'clock is still exactly where you left it, face up, your name in the good ink.
He has not touched it. He has been standing at the end of the board since you came in, one hand flat on the paper, the brass folding rule beside his palm.
"Four days,"
Sorel says, and his voice comes out thin, like a man reading a bad number off a good page.
"I have looked at that date forty times since you left it here."
He takes his glasses off with two fingers. His eyes are wet and he does not wipe them.
"Please do not marry him."
The words come out flat and exact, the way he gives a load case. Then his face breaks anyway.
"I have watched you check my numbers for four years. Choose me instead. I am asking you. I am asking."
Behind him the site phone rings once and stops. The crossing is pinned to the board between you, four spans of it, and the north pier is the one you argued about in March, and it is still where you put it.
He squares the invitation to the edge of the board with the brass rule, then holds the pencil out across the drawings, not quite giving it to you.
"Write it down,"
he says.
"Whatever you decide, you write it on my board."