There is a point in any argument with someone you love where you realize you are no longer having the argument with them.

I reached it on those stairs.

The sister I was talking to kept reaching for phrases that were not hers — the money has to move together, that is how international business works, dates move and documents get revised — phrases with a polish that did not match her, that she delivered a half-beat too smoothly, the way you recite a thing you have been told rather than a thing you know.

I was arguing with Monique.