The space Nolan's property had occupied looked larger on March 27 than it had when the cases were there. We had brought everything to the handover area before his arrival, leaving a rectangle of clean floor where dust had gathered around the edges. I checked the inventory against the intake record instead of trusting the familiarity of the cases.
Nolan arrived with his copy of the postponement and a pencil sharpened nearly to the wood. He asked whether we could count together. I had expected him to want a quick departure; it was a relief to be given a practical task, until I realized how carefully he was watching me perform it.
We worked down the list, matching identifying descriptions and quantities to the property before us. Where an old label was difficult to read, I showed him the intake notation rather than improving it from memory. He made a small tick beside each completed line. Neither of us used the word genuine.
At one case he stopped me. "That number isn't the number on my copy."
I looked at both sheets. A handwritten reference on his copy differed from the typed reference on mine. The intake description and quantity matched, but that did not make the discrepancy disappear. I fetched the underlying record, and we traced it to a copying error on the handover draft.
"I'll correct both copies," I said. "And note the correction, so it doesn't look as though the sheets always agreed."
"Please do."
It cost us several minutes. A month earlier I might have considered that wasted time over something obvious. Now I wrote the correction legibly, dated it and asked Nolan to initial it with me. He examined the line before he put his pencil down.
While I returned the underlying record to its folder, he asked whether any part of the review had changed. I said no additional purchase history had come to us. His family's papers remained his, the uncertainty remained unresolved, and the property had not been offered in the scheduled sale.
"I've put off buying the condominium," he said.
I looked up. He was fitting his pencil into the narrow loop of a pocket notebook. "I thought the sale would let me do it without complicating everything else. Now I have to reconsider. My daughter had already started talking about which furniture would fit."
I said I was sorry. He nodded without helping me turn the apology into a conversation.
"I know you can't make the market promise anything," he said. "But you could have told me earlier what you hadn't checked. That would have been useful before I started arranging my life around the number."
There was nothing accurate to add that would soften it. I told him he was right about the timing. We finished the count, and he signed for the property actually returned. I gave him his copy before helping move the cases toward the exit. The receipt closed the handover, not the disagreement.
After he left, I found a strip of packing paper caught beneath the table leg. I bent to pull it free and stayed there a moment, holding something that no longer served a purpose. Then I folded it into the waste bin and took the completed inventory to Grant.
He had the sale figures open on his desk. He asked whether the handover was complete, checked the signatures and closed the folder. I waited for him to say something about another route to the position. He waited for me to sit down.
"The promotion offer is withdrawn," he said. "The conditions haven't been met."
I asked whether there was a reduced responsibility or an interim arrangement he would consider. The question came out more quickly than I intended. He said no: he was not dividing the proposed appointment into pieces to preserve the offer. My cataloguer position and existing pay remained unchanged.
"This isn't a dismissal," he said. "I need you doing the work you do here."
"I understand the distinction."
I did understand it, though for a moment both outcomes felt equally like a door closing. I asked for written confirmation so I could stop treating the offer as pending. Grant agreed. His expression suggested he found the request unnecessary, but he sent the message before the afternoon was over.
I read it at my desk, then opened the household figures Mara had left with me. I removed the projected income completely rather than crossing it out again. Nolan had told me what postponement cost him. I now had a definite loss of my own to carry home, and a sister who deserved to hear it before another month passed.