“Why wait one more hour?”

“We’re going to give her exactly what she asked for,” I said.

Sarah looked at me for three seconds without another word.

She put her mug in the sink, picked up her coat, and walked out the back door into the cold morning.

At two that afternoon, Mark came into the dining room carrying his canvas backpack.

He stood at the end of the long oak table with both hands jammed deep in his back pockets.

“I called the college registrar an hour ago,” Mark said, his voice flat and hard.