A woman came down the hallway carrying a small silver briefcase. She was about sixty, with short dark hair and a navy blazer. She stopped at Robert’s door and knocked.
“Mrs. Whitmore?” she said to me. “I’m Evelyn Carter. I’m a—colleague of Robert’s. May I speak to him for a few minutes? Privately?”
A colleague. I’d never heard Robert mention her once in fifty years.
I said yes. I don’t know why. I suppose I was too tired to say anything else.
She was in there for almost twenty minutes. The door was closed. I sat in the hallway in a plastic chair and listened to the murmur of their voices through the wood. I couldn’t make out any words. Just that once, I heard Robert’s voice go up, sharp. And once, I thought I heard her crying.
When she came out, her eyes were red. She nodded to me without speaking and walked away down the hall with her silver briefcase.
