I sat down at the kitchen table under the hanging lamp and opened the top notebook to a page of notes in green ink.

Evan came into the kitchen carrying his open laptop.

His cell phone was pressed to his ear, and his voice was calm and steady.

“We can’t push the closing date to the middle of the month,” Evan said into the phone.

He pulled out the chair across from me and put his laptop on the yellow tablecloth.

“Donald will try to file for an extension if we give him three more days,” Evan told the person on the line.

“We keep the hard closing date right where we put it.”