The season slid toward late autumn and the city began shedding heat like a thing tired of pretending. Morning light pressed through the study curtains and found dust motes, tiny planets turning in the private universe of our house. There was a kind of domestic sanctity in that – the small rituals and the files stacked in perfect towers – that I clung to when the world tried to turn us into a headline.
Conley was already at the desk when I came down, sleeves rolled, the morning’s first calls scattered across his phone. He looked up and his smile was small and private. “We have momentum,” he said without flourish. “The endowment edict is close. The trustees are parsing language. Once that fund is live, it changes the game.”
I sat with my coffee, feeling the steady weight of the week. The i
