Monday I answered his message in three hours.
Not because I was busy. I'd seen it at nine-forty and put my phone down and done other things and come back to it after lunch. This was a choice I made without fully naming it a choice, the way I made a lot of choices that week.
The reply was short. Useful. Nothing extra.
He replied in twenty minutes: Got it. Thanks.
That was the register I'd set and he was using it. I noticed this the way you notice something you've caused and are watching play out.
Tuesday we had a call. Georgetown final sign-off three people, thirty minutes, the last of the formal sessions before the project wrapped. He was efficient. I was efficient. We covered everything in twenty-two minutes and there was nothing to object to.
Before, these calls had a moment in the
