The work requires two visits: one to learn the truth, one to deliver it. Some cases take more. Grev had cases that took seven or eight, where the truth had to be assembled from pieces the client needed time to give, or the delivery required multiple sessions to unfold correctly. Most cases take two.
Voel, thirty-eight, had contacted him through the registry three weeks ago. Her father was seventy-one, in a care facility in the eastern district. She had not seen him in nine years. The question she needed delivered was not unusual: does he forgive me? The specific nature of the matter between them was hers and her father's. Grev did not need to know it.
He went to the facility on a Tuesday. The father, whose name was Gael, was lucid, which helped. Some visits the person Grev needed to see was not lucid, and the work became estimation and judgment and something close to reconstruction, which was harder for everyone.
Grev explained the nature of the visit. He had a standard opening he had refined over the years. He told Gael who had sent him and what his daughter needed to know.
Gael was quiet for a moment. Then he said: yes. And there was one other thing he would like her to know, if she was willing to receive it. Grev said she had indicated full reception. Gael spoke for about four minutes. The other thing was not about the nine years. It was about something earlier, something Gael had been rethinking for a long time and had only recently understood differently. When Gael finished speaking he said: tell her I'm glad she sent someone. I wouldn't have known how to start.
Grev thanked him and said he would bring this to his daughter.
He went back to Voel two days later. He did not call first. The practice was in-person delivery; that was why the profession existed.
He sat across from her at her kitchen table and told her what her father had said, beginning with the yes and then the other thing in the order that made the most sense to him, which was not always the order it had been spoken in. Sequencing was most of the work. Most people did not know this when they came to him. They thought the hard part was the truth. The hard part was the order.
She sat very still while he spoke. When he finished she said: can I have a few minutes?
He said of course. He went into the corridor and stood there.
He had stood in many corridors. The practice was to wait until the person returned or called you back in. Some people came back in three minutes. Some took half an hour. He didn't look at his phone. He stood and thought about nothing in particular, which was the third skill, after listening and sequencing, and the one he had taken longest to learn.