There had not been one for seven years.

Delphine had simply been the only person who knew it.

And in the middle of the chaos, a small cold understanding was settling into me that had nothing to do with the crowd.

For seven years I had carried a version of the story in which no one had ever received my letters, my calls had been lost, my messages had failed to send — a story in which the silence was a kind of accident, a failure of the world rather than a decision by a person.

It was a merciful story, in its way.