Julian was at his desk-document open, pen in hand, the posture of someone deep inside something specific. He looked up at her with calm, unhurried attention.

"I'm sorry to interrupt."

"It's fine. What do you need?"

"Today is the biweekly call allowance. The international call home. I forgot to ask Frederick about the external line access code before he left this morning, and I'm not sure of the procedure for reaching him now."

Julian looked at the telephone on his desk. Then at her. "Use this one," he said. He pushed the handset toward her. "No code. Go ahead."

"I don't want to impose-"

"You're not imposing." He had already returned to the document. "Go ahead."

She crossed the study and stood beside his desk and picked up the receiver with both hands, acutely aware of every element of the situation. His desk. His phone. His room. Him sitting three feet away. The only way through it was to do the thing quickly and professionally and not overthink any of it.

She dialed the international string. Ring. Two. Three.

"Hello?" Lea's voice: immediate, alert, fully awake, the way she always answered-like she expected important news every time.

"Lea. It's me."

A rush: "Ate! I thought you forgot! It's been almost three weeks-"

"It's been exactly two weeks." Isabelle switched briefly to Tagalog: "On schedule. As promised."

"It felt like three." Lea's voice shifted into something more uncertain. "How are you? Is it nice there? Are you cold? Are you eating enough vegetables?"

"I'm fine. I'm genuinely fine. How was school?"

"Terrible. Miss Cruz assigned seven pages on the water cycle. Seven pages, Ate. I nearly didn't survive."

"Water is important."

"I know water is important. I drink it every day without needing seven pages to explain why." A beat. "When are you coming home?"

Isabelle had been bracing for this. "A year, probably. Maybe slightly less if things go well here. But probably a year."

Silence.

"Lea-"

"I know." Very small. "I'm not going to cry."

"You can if you want."

"I said I'm not." A dignified sniff. Then-Lea's default setting reasserted itself, which was relentlessly, stubbornly forward: "Okay. While I have you on the line. I need you to memorize something important."

Isabelle almost smiled despite herself. "What?"

"A Pikachu. The big stuffed one-not the small one. Miss Santos has the small one and it looks like it came from a petrol station. They have the big one at the toy store near SM. Tell Papa."

"Lea, those cost-"

"It's for Christmas. I'm informing you now so you have two months to plan. This is responsible financial management."

"It's October."

"Exactly. Two months. I've done the math." Her voice was completely serious about this.

And Isabelle couldn't hold it. The laugh came before she got her hand up-short, real, pressed hard against her palm but not fully contained.

She looked sideways at Julian on pure reflex.

He looked up.

She reassembled her expression immediately and looked away.

"Ate, was that you laughing?"

"No," Isabelle said.

"That was one hundred percent you."

"Tell Mama and Papa I called. Tell Paulo to stay in school."

"He is staying. He has a girlfriend now-her name is Riza, she sits next to him in science class, and he hasn't missed a single day since September." A pause. The logistics falling away, just the real thing underneath: "Ate. A year is really a long time."

Isabelle's throat tightened. She swallowed it. "It'll go fast."

"You don't believe that."

"I believe it enough." She kept her voice steady, because that was her job in this family. "I'll call in two weeks. Tell Mama I'm eating. Tell Paulo I'm proud of him. And tell him to be respectful to Riza."

"I'll tell him. She sounds very nice." A small pause. "I love you, Ate."

"I love you too." She kept it brief, because if she let herself sit in it she was going to do something embarrassing in front of her employer. "Goodbye, Lea."

She hung up.

The study was quiet. Julian was writing a notation in the margin of his document. He gave no indication of having absorbed any of the last four minutes, which was the most tactful thing he could have done and which she appreciated enormously.

"Thank you," she said. "I'll confirm the correct procedure with Frederick for next time so I don't have to-"

"How many siblings?" Julian asked, still writing.

She stopped mid-pivot. "Four. I'm the eldest."

"Lea's the youngest."

"She's fourteen." A brief pause. "She's very fourteen."

Something at the edge of his expression shifted-not quite a smile, but the territory adjacent to one, present for less than a second before it was gone. He turned the page. "Your parents."

"Both living. My father works construction. My mother stays at home." She kept it steady and neutral. Her mother's health wasn't a conversation she was having on day fourteen.

Julian made a small notation. "A year is a long time to be away from all of them."

"Yes," she said. "It is."

He nodded once. She understood the conversation was finished. She thanked him again and crossed to the door.

"Miss Sterling."

She turned.

He hadn't looked up from the document. "Every phone in the house has a direct external line. Kitchen, ground-floor hall, your guest suite. No access code, no call log, no duration limits." He turned a page. "Call home whenever you need to. The cost doesn't factor in."

She stood in the doorway and let that land.

She had been managing the ten-minute biweekly allowance in her head since day one. She had a system already-a mental schedule of what to cover in each call, what could wait for the next one, what information was worth the minutes and what wasn't. She had been conserving. Rationing. Planning around the restriction.

He was telling her there was no restriction. That she could call Lea on Saturday mornings when Lea was home and had time to be dramatic. That she could call her mother on Sundays when her mother was rested. That she could call Paulo and ask about this girl Riza and whether he was being decent to her.

The relief was enormous and completely out of proportion to the thing that had caused it. She felt it anyway.

"Thank you, Mr. Mercer," she said. Her voice came out even and professional and exactly right.

"You're welcome."

She pulled the door closed behind her and walked down the stairs.