Renata saw the flannel shirt, the dented Ford pickup in the gravel drive, the old coffee mug from a hardware store, and she thought she understood me.
She thought a man like me could be pushed.
She thought wrong.
My name is Walter Hale. I’m sixty-three years old, and for most of my life I made my living with a tool belt around my waist and sawdust in my hair. I started in construction at nineteen, framing houses in January with my hands so cold I could barely close them around a hammer. By thirty-four, I had my own small contracting company. By forty-five, I had crews working under me. By fifty-five, I had learned that a man could do very well for himself if he showed up early, kept his word, paid his people on time, and never spent money just because other people expected him to.
