Things had been going so well that morning, too.

The croissant: buttery, warm.

The tea: black, sweet.

The email: ...dumbfounding.  See also: abashing, addling, agitating, befuddling, bewildering, blurring, confounding, discomfiting, distracting, disturbing, flustering, frustrating, perplexing, stirring up, tangling, tumultous, turbulent, unsettling, and any other phrase you could think of to describe how one sentence could turn someone's life upside down. 


He was back.