She’d laughed it off, sipped her coffee, walked back to her desk, returned to her work. And the question had haunted her mind for the rest of the day. While she tidied her papers, while she wrote her archives information requests, while she browsed the archives herself—it was faster, sometimes, to go in-person and browse, plus of course she   adored   it—while she organized her outline for the new legal briefing. While she travelled home, disoriented and vaguely distressed. While she ate dinner. While she lay in bed with Ron.