And when Franny died in July, the bridge did not just lose its keeper.

It fell.

And Robin and I had been standing on our separate shores for four months, waving, unable to hear a word.

Without Franny, Robin and I did not know how to talk to each other at all, and four months of Sunday calls had proven it.

“I’m finishing her outstanding work,” I said, the careful sentence I’d been practicing.

“That’s all.