Outside the window, gravel moved.

Not the crunch of a delivery van.

Something slower.

I stood and put my hand on the window frame just as the front bell rang through the house, and Robert’s voice came up the stairwell saying my name.

I looked at the patent folders on the desk, and the printed vendor pages fanned out beside them, and the phone, and my own hand still resting where the receiver had been.

Calling hours were one thing.