Maya understood why as soon as she saw the first paragraph.

Richard described her departure without describing what had happened before it.

He called her decisions unexplained, as if he had not received messages answering the practical questions about Lily.

Maya set the page down.

“I want a meeting,” she said when she called Ellen.

“We can respond in writing.”

“I want that too.

But not another conversation where he tells everyone later that I agreed to something.”