The job listing said "family communication specialist" but what it meant was translator. Not between languages — between people.
Martin's first client was a father named Phil and his adult son, David. They hadn't spoken in two years. The falling-out was over something ordinary that had calcified into something impossible: Phil had said David's wife was "a little much" at Thanksgiving, David had said Phil was "a little drunk," and then neither of them could find a sentence that wasn't loaded, so they stopped looking.
Martin's job was to carry messages between them. Not to interpret or advise — just to relay. Phil would call Martin on Tuesdays. David would call on Thursdays. Martin would listen to one and tell the other what was said. Both of them were paying him $200 an hour, which meant the silence between them was worth $400 an hour to break.
The first few weeks were simple. Phil said he hoped David was doing well. Martin told David. David said he hoped Phil was eating better since the diagnosis. Martin told Phil. Each of them spoke in the careful, formal register of people communicating through a lawyer, which is essentially what Martin was, except without the law.
Then Phil said something unscripted.
"Tell him I watched his daughter's recital video. The one his wife posted. She's good. She's — tell him I cried."
Martin told David. There was a long silence on the phone.
"Tell him I know," David said. "Sarah — that's my wife, the one who's 'a little much' — she's the one who posted it. She posted it on a public page instead of the family one. On purpose. So he could see it."
Martin told Phil. Phil said nothing for almost a minute. Then: "Tell him to thank her for me."
Martin told David. David said: "Tell him to thank her himself."
"I can't do that," Phil said, when Martin relayed this. "That's not — the arrangement is through you."
"Tell him the arrangement is stupid," David said. "Tell him a grown man shouldn't need a relay."
"Tell him I know," Phil said.
Martin sat with his phone in his hand, looking at the wall of his studio apartment, which was mostly bare except for a whiteboard where he tracked his clients. Phil/David was written in blue marker, with arrows going both directions, like a circuit diagram. He had six other pairs on the board: a mother and her estranged daughter, two business partners who'd sued each other, a woman and her ex-husband co-parenting through mutual fury. Each pair had its own color.
The thing nobody told Martin when he took this job — the thing they couldn't tell him, because it wasn't in the listing — was that being a relay changes you. He absorbed each person's tone, their timing, the particular way they circled around what they meant before landing on what they said. After a few weeks with Phil and David, Martin found himself using Phil's speech patterns when talking to David, and David's when talking to Phil. Not their words — their rhythms. The way Phil would pause before saying something vulnerable, as if checking whether the bridge would hold his weight. The way David would couch an emotional statement in something practical, hiding the feeling inside a fact.
Martin started to wonder whether he was translating or channeling. Whether the messages Phil and David were receiving were really from each other, or from Martin's impression of each other. He was a medium in the spiritualist sense — a person through whom the dead speak, except nobody was dead, they just couldn't find the frequency.
The break came on a Thursday. David called and said: "I want to tell him something directly. No relay. Can you set up a call?"
Martin should have felt relieved. This was the goal — reconnection. This was what the $400 an hour was supposed to buy. A bridge that would eventually make itself unnecessary.
Martin opened his mouth to say "of course" and instead said, "Let me check the schedule."
There was no schedule. He sat at his desk and looked at the whiteboard. Phil/David in blue, the arrows going both directions. He picked up the eraser, held it near the board, and put it down.
For three months he'd been the only person who understood both of them. He knew Phil's pauses and David's deflections. He knew what each of them meant when they said "tell him I know." He'd carried their words carefully, aware that one wrong inflection could collapse the whole thing.
He called David back twenty minutes later.
"Saturday morning work for you?"
He wasn't invited to the call, which was correct. Saturday morning he sat in his studio apartment and looked at the whiteboard. Phil/David in blue. He didn't erase it yet.
His phone buzzed at 11:14 AM. A text from David: It went well. Thank you.
Then, twenty minutes later, a text from Phil: He said I should thank you. So: thank you. For carrying the hard parts.
Martin read both messages twice. Then he picked up the blue marker and added a small check mark next to Phil/David. His first completed case.
He looked at the other pairs on the board. The mother and daughter. The business partners. The co-parents. Six circuits still open, still humming with messages that needed carrying.
He put the marker down and sat in the quiet apartment and wondered what it would feel like when the board was empty. When all the circuits were closed and all the relays were retired and there was nobody left who needed him to stand between them.
He wondered whether that was something to hope for or something to dread.
Then his phone rang. Tuesday call. The mother.
He answered it.