"All week Max thinks about it. At night he falls asleep constructing the narrative and at work he spends the lunch hour in his car manufacturing details. When Sunday night rolls around and Nora has been put to bed and Julia is asleep or reading, he brings the radio station’s stream up on his computer. He’s in the den and the moon illuminates the snow falling outside. He tells himself he’s calling on a lark, a private prank, because he’s bored, because as he listens, there are lulls in the broadcast, awkward silences the show’s host struggles to fill, admirably, with recitations of stories she’s heard, with the importance of being in touch, of reaching out, of a voice, and he just wants to give her someone to talk to. And see, he just happens to have this story at the ready."