The decision did not arrive as an argument.
It arrived as a calendar notification.
Zane noticed it while the apartment was still half-asleep, the kind of quiet that had become calibrated to breathing patterns and listening rather than absence. Atlanta. In person. Final terms. A meeting that did not survive screens or proxies. Thirty-four million dollars, expansion, leverage that lived in pauses rather than clauses.
He closed the notification without accepting it.
By the time Willow appeared in the doorway with Zana asleep against her chest, he had already made the decision. What he had not yet done was say it, and the he did.
"I have to go to Atlanta tomorrow," he said when she asked what was wrong.
She didn't flinch. She adjusted Zana instinctively and waited.
"A week," he added.
"Okay," she said.
The word was correct. The tone wasn't.
