The kitchen went quiet in a way I recognized from a long time ago.

“You’re right,” I said. “I do that.”

She looked up, surprised, and something in her face opened and then closed again, and she said, “Anyway. I don’t care,” and got up to put her plate in the sink, and I watched her stand at that sink with her back to me for eleven seconds too long.

I have learned some things in five years. Most of them from a therapist named Ruthanne who charges too much and is worth it.

One of them is that when Sophie’s shoulders go up like that, I have about ninety seconds before she leaves the room and it closes for another month.

“Soph.”