We moved out to the patio at two with the pages weighted under a garden stone.

The light was the thin kind that comes in October and shows you every smudge on a glass table.

Daniel kept his voice down even out here, with nothing but the hedges and a jay on the fence.

“Thirty-six approvals,” I said.

“In five months.”

“Some of them came in on the same day.

She batches them.”

“So she isn’t just approving the transfers.