Tonight, though, I was antsy. Sleep was too far away. The deal I’d been working on for months had just closed. And now it was three in the morning and never mind waking up, I still hadn’t fallen asleep. I wanted to call Josephine, not to lie in silence this time, but to talk.

We hadn’t spoken more than our standard greeting since the first night when she told me she missed me. It was a strange ritual.

I looked over at my clock for the hundredth time. What would she be doing right now? It was nine p.m. where she was, slightly earlier than I usually called. I should feel guilt for using her as a crutch, and keeping her from her life, but when I shallowly examined my conscience, I couldn’t find it. And didn’t try too hard.

I rolled to my side and picked up my phone, calling her before reason and decency got the better of me.

It rang three times and connected. “Josephine?” I asked as I usually did.

“I’m here.”

“Are you alone?” I asked as I did every time I called.

There was a long pause. An uncomfortable sickness slipped under my skin and curled around my stomach.

“Yes,” she said at last as if it pained her to admit.

I swallowed heavily. One day, she would say no, and that would be that. “Moi aussi,” I said, finalizing our ritual. This was where we normally ended our discourse and lapsed into silence. My mind raced through ways to open conversation. I hadn’t planned what to say.

“Xavier?” she asked.

Inhaling through my nose, surprised, I braced for her telling me this was our last call. I wouldn’t blame her. “Oui?”

“How did your meetings go?”

I shifted my head on my pillow, rolling onto my back, letting out a relieved sigh. It seemed we both felt the need to break our silence tonight. “I guess Dauphine told you? Very good. We closed the deal. Got the investments we needed. Licensed the patents we wanted to. I had to concede a little on the time. I wanted them to be renewed every year, but I agreed to every two.”

“That’s … good. Congratulations.”

I grunted, knowing the satisfaction I used to feel at business success was nowhere to be found. “And you? Did you get a job with another firm?” It was terrible that I didn’t know this yet. What if she was unemployed still? Homeless? Hungry? I was being dramatic. She was so talented and smart.

“No. I didn’t look for another firm to be honest. Someone helped me realize my passion didn’t lie in building the new as much as saving the old. I took a job with a preservation group.”

I licked my lips. “Like my mother.”

She sighed. “Without the means, and only the passion.”

“Without passion, the means have no impact,” I said.