The fixture of her attention on that removed point intensifies, threatening to draw her back into that person at the edge of the planter. She struggles against it, and the silence produced by it is at once braced and brittle.

"You returned the survey. You refused every invitation to participate, despite my insistence of its importance. You have attempted to surrender the care of your things here and in fact made every effort to avoid crossing my path when I insisted otherwise. After I--" She lapses. It's a brief, furiously closed tight thing.

"I'm not an imbecile, Mister Ellis. I don't need to be told to know."