For—” and couldn’t finish it, and didn’t have to.

And then she said the thing that mattered more, that she was going to come more often, that she’d been letting the distance be an excuse, that she could get on a plane four times a year instead of two, that being far away was a reason to try harder and not, the way she’d been treating it, a reason she was let off from trying at all.

The brochures went in the recycling.

Nobody ever mentioned them again.