“Leave her duffel bag on the front bench,” he said.

“I’ll drop it off at the hospital desk after my eleven o’clock budget call.”

He turned back toward the kitchen and picked up his gold pen before I had even reached the stairs.

I went upstairs to the small home office in the back bedroom to get Grace’s blue school folder and her spare insurance card from the top desk drawer.

The black digital landline base sat on the corner of the oak desk, its small red light blinking steadily next to our internet router.