I stayed in the green room after he finished speaking.
Not because he asked me to. Not because the situation required it. Because the weight of what had just been given to me was the kind of weight that required stillness to receive properly, and I was not going to move through it quickly or efficiently or with the practiced management of someone who had learned to process difficult things on schedule.
I sat in the chair by the window.
He stood in the middle of the room.
The lamp made its low circle. The French doors held the October dark. The house breathed its deep committed breath around us and the clock on the nightstand marked the minutes in the specific quiet way of clocks that understood their function was to mark rather than announce.
I sat with what he had given me.
The pare
