“Kelli’s World,” remembered Jessica. It was like I had emptied out the entire contents of my head onto Jessica’s plate that afternoon.

“Yes, Kelli’s World. And I’ll have Bestlife in the meantime — they’ve been great. And, you know, in emergencies, there’s always Trevor.”

“Who’s Trevor again?” said Jessica.

“The kidnapping guy.”

“Promise me,” said Jessica, “you will not call the kidnapping guy.”

“I knew you had it in ya!” Trevor shook my hand in the foyer and clapped me on the back like we were a pair of businessmen congratulating each other on the deal of the century.

I told him a few days later, during one of his official home care visits (I’d started to think of him, on those days, as “Clipboard Trevor,” as opposed to jeans and T-shirt “Trevor Off the Clock”). I had called my clients that same morning to let them know I wasn’t coming back. Family issues, I’d explained. That phrase — the sombre hand-wave it represented — had been a master stroke. It deflected questions, discouraged demands for explanations. Thrown off, they murmured their regret and wished me the best. I offered my services long distance. One told me that would not be tenable, which I’d been expecting. The other said that they’d think about it, which I thought they actually might.

But I found I didn’t care one way or another. I was still rippling with self-amazed glee. I’d done it. I’d just picked up the phone, had a couple of five-minute conversations, and changed the future. So it was fun, telling Trevor. I had even been looking forward it, basking in the hearty approval I knew I had coming. But at the same time there was an off quality to that heartiness — a quality that made me glad I hadn’t given in to my instincts and called Trevor, instead of Jessica, to tell him my news.

Maybe it had to do with the convoluted way I told the story, standing there with him in the foyer — trying to capture the crazy elation of the moment, of hugging myself in the kitchen after I’d left Kelli’s room, the future cracking open in front of me, spilling forth a giddy cascade of revelations and game plans (Quit my contracts. Rent my house. Sell this house! . . .). At the same time as I was trying to get my euphoria across, I was careful not to let Trevor know how close I’d been to calling him at that moment. I had almost let myself cross a line, in all my heedless exhilaration, and for some reason I felt like it was important not to let him know how close I’d come.

I told Trevor I had called Jessica — as if she were a dear, close friend as opposed to someone I hadn’t spoken to since I was ten. After all, Trevor didn’t know that she wasn’t. I described how I’d snatched up the phone and, laughing like a hysteric, babbled my news at poor, bewildered Jessica. And Trevor’s wide smile stayed in place but his eyes grew vague, fixed at some point on the wall behind me. The effect was like when you pause a movie, and the expression on the actor’s face — unremarkable just seconds before — seems monstrous in the frozen moment. But then his eyes refocused and the smile re-widened, and he followed up his slap on the back with a corny, congratulatory pumping of my hand.