Afterward I shuffled pieces of paper. I put books back on shelves. I took the phone out of my pocket and laid it on the desk. I put it away again: out of sight, out of mind, I instructed myself sternly. I made more coffee, very strong this time, which I drank while it was still too hot so it burned my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I took the phone out once more, stared at it as if it could talk. I fed unwanted mail through the shredder and watered the plants on the windowsill. When Beth left for the day, I couldn’t stop myself. I took my phone, pulled up the missed-call window and pressed call, then canceled it immediately.

I pressed the number again and this time I held my nerve. I could hear it ringing now and closed my eyes, swallowing hard, trying to breathe normally in spite of the rushing in my head and the pounding in my ears.

“Hello?” said a male voice down the phone. And “Hello?” it said, outside the door.

“Who . . . ?” I began in confusion, before realization flooded through me. I jabbed end call and slammed the phone on the desk. It skittered along the shiny surface and clattered to the floor.

“Hello?” said the voice outside the door again, irritable now. “Are you there? Hello? Hello?”

I was trembling so much I could barely sit upright. The door swung open.

“Hi, Gwen,” said David, pushing his mobile back into his pocket.

I pretended I was so hard at work that I hadn’t heard him properly. I stared at some figures and underlined a few. My hands shook and the pen made incomprehensible scrawls across the page. David, I thought. So it was David.

“Gwen?”

I felt unable to speak coherently. I could barely manage to breathe. But I made myself say something, as if I were a normal human being. “David,” I said, “how are you doing?”