“You came home yesterday like a man in a dream,” Natalia went on at his back. “Then today you left practically at dawn, and haven’t returned till now, still locked up inside yourself.”
“I told you why,” he said. “Business accumulated while I was gone.”
“What do you mean? Except for your interest in the Rufus Lab, what do you do any longer, locally?”
The challenge made him turn around. She stood rigid, fists at her sides. The pain that he saw hurt him too; the rising anger that he heard was a kind of balm.
“You know I have things going elsewhere,” he reminded her. She had seen the modest downtown office he maintained. He had never described just what it was for.
“Indeed. Whenever I tried to call you, your machine answered.”