“With Abigail in the car.”

“It was a long night,” she said.

“I don’t have the order of everything straight anymore.”

From the doorway, Charles said her name.

Just the one word.

He wanted us downstairs.

He said we should settle the handshake like adults, over tea, and he said it in front of the unit secretary, who smiled at him.

So at five o’clock the three of us sat at the corner table in the cafeteria with a tray between us, and I laid the intake form flat on that tray, curled edge and all.