When Nolan called on May 12, I stood up before answering, as though he could see whether I was prepared to listen. He said he had been considering my letter. I expected another question about the estimate or a complaint I had not yet learned how to answer.
"I still have a room full of family papers," he said. "You saw part of it. I'd like them organized so I can find things without opening every envelope."
I asked whether he wanted a referral. He said he was asking me. The surprise must have been audible, because he added that he was not asking me to value the property or decide whether the wine was authentic.
"An inventory of records," he said. "What exists, where it is, what it concerns. Can you do that without telling me more than you know?"
I said I could, then made myself slow down. We needed to agree on the material, the deliverables and the limits before I accepted. I also needed permission from Grant for outside work involving a former consignor. Nolan said he could wait for that answer, but he would not pay me to negotiate with my employer.
That afternoon I took the proposal to Grant. He asked whether Nolan planned to return the collection to sale. I said he had made no such proposal, and I would not treat access to his papers as a way to solicit it.
"You'd be working for a client we already know," Grant said.
"Outside auction hours, on his records. No valuation, no authentication and no promise of a future consignment."
Grant turned a paper clip between his fingers. He asked whether I intended to use company equipment or take Bellweather files home. I said no. Documents belonging to the firm would remain where they were; any copy Nolan needed from his own transaction could be requested through the ordinary process.
"Put the arrangement in writing," he said. "And don't describe the work as endorsed by us."
I wrote the limits down while we spoke and sent them to him afterward. His permission came back with a condition that outside work not interfere with my scheduled duties. It was not a restored appointment or a favor that would finance the house. It was permission to earn ordinary money by doing a defined job.
I met Nolan at his apartment that evening. He had cleared the same table where we had sorted the storage box. This time he had put a notepad at each place, an arrangement that made the conversation feel less like a return to our earlier review.
I proposed a preliminary list of containers, followed by a document index with dates transcribed as they appeared, brief descriptions and cross-references. Originals would remain with him. Missing or uncertain dates would be marked as such, and family explanations would be identified as statements rather than silently incorporated into the record.
"Would you put values beside things?" he asked.
"No. Not under this agreement."
"Good. I don't want an index that turns into another estimate because the column was handy."
We discussed hourly pay, a spending limit requiring his approval before further work, and a schedule outside my auction hours. I offered to reduce the rate because of what had happened. He shook his head before I finished the offer.
"If the work has value, charge for it. If it doesn't, I don't want it done as penance."
I crossed out the reduced figure and wrote the ordinary rate I could support. Then I asked him to choose which records mattered first. Household property and family correspondence came before the wine papers. He wanted something useful for managing his affairs, not a grand reconstruction of a collection's history.
At the end he read the scope again. "Paying you doesn't mean I've decided the earlier trouble was harmless."
"I understand."
"You keep saying that. This time I want it to mean you won't ask the work to settle what it can't."
I told him the invoices would describe completed tasks, not repaired trust. He gave a brief nod and signed. I signed beneath him, leaving room for amendments rather than squeezing every contingency into small print.
On my way home I bought an inexpensive notebook for the assignment. I entered the approved spending limit on the first page and the first session on the second. The money might cover practical expenses when I moved; it could not buy Mara out. I had accepted work that fit inside my abilities and my evenings. For once, I did not add a larger future to it before the first hour had begun.