Lorrlyne always called at the same time.
Not by accident. Not out of convenience.
By design.
It was the hour when the apartment had settled into its night shape, when Zana's bath had been given, her bottle finished, her small body warm and loose with sleep. The lights were dimmed. The dishes were drying. Willow sat in the chair by the window with the quiet, careful stillness of someone who had learned not to disturb what had finally gone right.
That hour had become its own threshold, the point in the evening where effort softened into maintenance and Willow could feel the day loosening its grip on her body. She recognized it now in the way her shoulders dropped without instruction and in the way her thoughts stopped racing ahead to what might come next.
That was when the phone would light up.
Not with a ringtone.
With her name.
