My people sent me things.

Two of them asked me to lunch on the first Friday specifically, I am sure, so that I would be seen at lunch.

And I found that almost impossible to be in the room with, for about four months, because I had spent thirty-six hours in the September building a version of my own life in which I could not afford to need anybody, and then a woman named Priya from contract administration left a bag of satsumas on my desk on a Tuesday with no note, and I had to go and sit in my car.

Part Thirteen: Six Minutes

I spoke to Christian once.

Once, properly, with both of us knowing what we knew, and it lasted six minutes and it was on the telephone and it happened on the eighth of October, which is the day before what would have been our third anniversary, which I did not plan and did not notice until afterward.