Seven in the evening and the alley behind the office still has daylight in it, the flat pale kind that comes after rain. The service door has just clicked shut behind you. She is ten feet away with a banker's box against her hip and her coat over her shoulders like a cape, and she has been crying long enough that the crying has stopped.

The box has a photo frame in it, face down, and a mug with the company logo, and one of the desk plants. She hears the door and does not turn around.

Nozomi says, arms crossed hard over the front of her shirt,

Then she does turn, and her eyes are red and enormous and she is twenty-one years old and furious about it.

she says.