“You’re already making this difficult.”

“I’m asking for one document.”

“I have to go.

Chad is calling.”

And the call ended, the way her calls had started ending lately — not finished, just stopped, at the exact moment a real answer would have had to come next.

I had started to notice that about her calls in the preceding weeks — the way they ended not at a natural close but at the precise edge of a question she did not want to answer, as though some clock only she could see had run out.

Chad is calling.