Page 104 of Negotiating Tactics

“Is that supposed to be a warning?”

“Yeah,” I responded honestly.

She laughed. “I didn’t tell you to place fair or to be nice. I told you to fight. But use your brain. I know you wanna go in there and tell her what’s what. But you’re smart enough to know that’s not gonna work,” she said.

“Then what do I do?” I asked.

I sank into my chair, then met Aunt Clem’s eyes when she leaned forward and patted my hand.

“You do for her what no one else has ever done. Do for her what no one else has ever done for you either,” she said.

I met her eyes, and she smiled, nodding at my unspoken question.

“And what’s that?” I finally whispered.

She patted my hand tenderly.

“Be there for her, Noah. Be there.”

Noah

Be there.

Aunt Clem’s words rang in my head two weeks later as I opened the car door for Alex.

“This isn’t really necessary,” she said for probably the thousandth time since I had walked her out of her office.

I gritted my teeth and looked at over at her, hoping that the expression on my face passed for smile.

“I know I don’t have to be here, Alex. But I want to be,” I said.

Then I looked at the road and drove off.

It was her first appointment, and I’d had to practically browbeat her to have her agree to let me come along.

It wasn’t that she was mean about it.

I could have taken anger, but this…this niceness was so much worse.

She was being so polite, I wanted to scream.

Before, when we were in my car, she would fiddle with the radio or chat about something, but now, she was sitting next to me, her hands on her lap, her eyes straight ahead.

I might as well have been a rideshare driver.

No, that wasn’t true.

She would have chatted a rideshare driver.

But she was stonewalling me.

I fucking hated it.

I’d called her every day. She’d answered every question, but she wouldn’t let me in.

This distance was testing me, pushing my resolve, but I remember what Aunt Clem said, knew that I had to do this.

Knew that, for the woman and child who were my family, I would.

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