Is. Present tense. She held my gaze, which I read not so much as a threat, but a dare to respond, to defend. I thought I might simply remind her that my father was dead, but as we pulled into the station, she rose abruptly and stood by the door. I didn’t notice it was also my stop until it was too late.

Sara was behind her high desk when I arrived at reception. Tardy, thanks to my Metro detour. When she saw me, she smiled her slow smile and asked after my mother and sister. She’d known us all for ages, and had actually worked for my father before I’d lured her away three years ago. She liked to grumble often that I’d delayed her retirement.

“What do I need to deal with?” I asked. I was more than ready to be back in the office, with its familiar if mundane sounds and smells. “Tell me what I missed.”

“I’m so sorry.” She reached for my hand. “What a shock. What a nightmare.”

“Yes.” Already one of my prepared statements making itself useful. “It is really unfortunate.”

“I’ll let you get settled,” she said. “No need to dive into anything straightaway.”

“Sara.” I withdrew my hand, grabbed my day planner from my bag, and held it up for her. “You know I’ve got this.”

“Understood.” She folded her fingers under her chin. “The copy machine upstairs is broken, and everyone has been using mine. We need you to do that magic thing you did last time that fixed it.”

“Noted.”

“People are overusing reply all.”

“Got it.”

“I’ve been telling them not to, but people just keep putting papers on your desk. I know how much you hate that.”

I did, though trying to stop paper falling into my lap often felt like a Sisyphean task, and therefore a complete waste of energy. “They’ll hear about it, believe me.”

“And there’s a new intern.”

“Name?”

“Does it matter?”

This was all so blissfully easy. “No,” I said happily.

“We missed you,” she said. “Miles is upstairs.”

I found him sitting in the little room by the staircase that housed the signature machine, jacket off, cuffs rolled, positioning a piece of paper under the autopen. When Miles wants to be alone with his thoughts, he signs his own letters with a contraption that is supposed to forge his signature. The whir of the machine, he says, the tedium of it, helps him relax. I tried once myself, but it didn’t work.