She told us.
He went very still for a moment. The particular stillness that was not controlled stillness — the stillness of someone receiving something that is too large to immediately hold.
Then the corner of his mouth moved. Not the almost-expression that had characterized the early weeks — the one that arrived and withdrew before it fully resolved. This one arrived and stayed. Small. Genuine. The specific quality of something that has not been assembled for anyone.
"All right," he said quietly. To the room, to no one, to some private version of himself that was still working out what to do with everything that had just happened.
I looked back at the screen.
At the hands. The profile. The specific unrepeatable person who was, at this moment, entirely unaware of charter ratifications
