“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Monique.”

“Why do you always make me say the number before you even hear the plan?”

“Because the number tells me how serious the plan is.”

She laughed.

“You really are a data analyst.” Then she lowered her voice, and the brightness thinned, and she asked me the thing she had actually called to ask.

It is a particular talent of my sister’s, to spend the first several minutes of a call establishing that nothing is wrong, so that by the time the actual request arrives you have already agreed, in some small way, that this is a pleasant ordinary conversation between two people who trust each other.

The warmth is real.