The apartment she moved into was not fancy. It was in a neighborhood three miles from the financial district, a building with a working elevator and a small terrace and windows that got good morning light. She had found it in two days, moving quickly the way she always moved when she had a clear direction, and she had furnished it sparsely at first—a bed, a kitchen table, two chairs, a lamp—with the understanding that the rest would come with time, and that there was something to be said for a space that felt like a beginning rather than an arrival.
She called her father on the third evening after moving in, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, the city glittering through the window in the way cities do after dark—indifferent and brilliant and alive.
“How is it?” he asked.
“Quiet,” she said. “I like it.”
“I imagined you would.”
She turned the cup in her hands. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Good.”
“I need to do something. Work. Something real.” She paused. “Not because I need money. I know that’s—I know you’d take care of—” She stopped, started again. “But I need to build something. I think I’ve always needed to build something. I just spent two years building the wrong thing.”