“Up,” she said, with enormous patience, as one explains a thing to a slow adult.

I called Meg on Thursday and said I needed time.

She said take it, and then she said one more thing before she hung up, in the flat voice she uses when she’s telling you something for your own good rather than for your file.

“For what it’s worth,” Meg said, “in twenty years I have had exactly four respondents go the full term without a single violation.

It doesn’t mean what people want it to mean.

It usually means they’re waiting for the clock.”