Imara was waiting at the entrance of her building.
Not inside. Outside. On the pavement with her coat over her arm and her phone in her hand and the specific expression of someone who had heard enough in thirty seconds on the phone to understand that inside could wait.
She saw Nia coming from half a block away.
She didn't say anything. She just opened her arms.
And Nia who had walked out of her own office with her hands perfectly still and her face giving nothing away and her back straight and her pace even walked straight into them and came apart completely.
Not quietly. Not with the controlled dignified grief of someone who had decided how much they were going to feel. Properly. The specific kind of crying that came from somewhere that had been sealed for a long time and had finally
