So pack your things this morning — you can put yourself in the garage.” I held the phone and watched a curl of my breath rise and vanish over the coffee.

Somewhere in the house a radiator ticked without giving off heat.

“The garage,” I said.

It wasn’t really a question.

I just wanted to hear her say it back, wanted it on the record between us, the exact shape of the thing.

“It’s below freezing out there, Delphina.” A little sigh came down the line, the particular sigh she’d been aiming at me since we were girls, the one that said I was being difficult again, that I was always the difficult one, the heavy one, the one who made things awkward by having needs.