He called on a Wednesday and asked if he could come by the hospital. Not the apartment. The hospital, which was my territory, where I had the geography and he was the visitor, and I recognized the consideration in that choice without remarking on it.
I had fifteen minutes between a case review and a meeting with the department head. I told him so. He said fifteen minutes was enough.
We stood in the consultation room at the end of the east corridor, door closed, the city grey outside the window, and I waited while he organized what he had come to say in the way he was learning to organize things now, without the armor of performance, just the thing itself.
“I need to talk to you about the press situation,” he said. “And the Castellanos.”
“All right.”
“The profile piece is going to run.
