“Well, I think it’s amazing,” Gary says. “How much work we’ll do just to feel something. I don’t think there is anything more human than that.” Phoebe agrees. She feels such tenderness for him, but she doesn’t know how to say that, so she says, “I’ve missed talking like this.” She loves deep, winding conversations that go up and down, especially in the dead of night when everyone should be sleeping. She has forgotten the way conversations, really good ones, can change her—shape-shift her like a tree. Sometimes leave her bare, sometimes leave her fuller.
