The dark screen showed no missed calls and no voicemails.

I didn’t open the camera.

I didn’t start a text to Eleanor, and I didn’t open the family group chat.

I set the phone back down beside my red pencil and leaned back in my office chair, looking out the floor-to-ceiling window at the brown water of the Sacramento River flowing south in the sun.

At six o’clock, the evening dusk turned the sky above the city into pale rose and slate gray.

I stood on the second-floor balcony of my apartment, resting my forearms on the clean black iron railing.