When the email finally landed—start date confirmed; mobilization Monday—it felt less like an arrival and more like the soft click of a door you’d been holding open. Collins’s message was efficient and plain: the acquisition hiccup had been resolved, materials re-allocated, and our crew was on the schedule. For a long second I just stared at the screen, the words settling into my chest like a payment clearing the bank.
We celebrated the way we always did: quietly and practically. Mark poured two beers from the cooler in the van and handed me one with grease on his fingers and a grin that had been married to hard work for a long time. “First load,” he said, lifting his can. “We don’t burn it on fireworks. We file it under momentum.”
Jonah, who’d been sleeping with a pencil behind his ear a
