He was gone before I could close anything.

He took the stairs two at a time, and a door shut above, softly, the way a door shuts when a person has decided not to mention something.

I turned back to the monitor.

The screen had gone dark.

The green light from the printer slid across it, and then the photographs started up, the folder that shows itself when the computer gets tired.

Chloe’s children on a dock.