Ten days.
That was what had passed since Veronica had knocked on the door of apartment 4C with a professional coat and a specific kind of attention that wasn't sympathy and wasn't performance.
Ten days since Frau Müller had said — reluctantly, then less reluctantly, then almost not reluctantly at all — 'come in.'
The friendship that had grown in those ten days had a particular character. It was — honest. Not the performed warmth of a professional relationship and not the cautious, feeling-each-other-out warmth of new acquaintances. The specific warmth of two women who had found, in each other, someone who was exactly what they said they were and had stopped being surprised by it.
