She almost did not knock.
She had finished the report, it was ten past nine, the floor was empty, she had her bag on her shoulder and her coat over her arm and she was ninety percent of the way to the elevator when she heard him put something down in his office with the quiet force of someone who has been looking at the same thing for too long and has run out of patience with it.
She stood in the corridor for a moment.
She thought about the elevator. She thought about the practical wisdom of going home. She thought about the three-inch gap in the door and the kitchen table two weeks ago and the way the city had looked through his office window at that particular hour when the darkness was complete and the lights below were the only geography.
She turned around and knocked on his door.
