“Are you sick?”

“I got written up at work.”

She came down the hallway with her cardigan still buttoned, stood in the doorway, looked at the two of us on the floor, and didn’t ask a thing, which was how I knew my face looked bad.

“Patricia showed up at the building,” I said.

“Naturally she did.”

“She brought the notice from the newspaper.

She read my name out loud to the receptionist.”