Dorothy had her eyes glued to a screen and I had to say her name to get her attention. We hadn’t talked since I’d been pink-slipped so she immediately looked up at me with a sympathetic frown you might reserve for someone you just heard had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

“Come inside, Jack,” she said.

She stood up and left the raft and headed to her seldom-used office. She sat behind her desk but I stayed standing because I knew this would be quick.

“I just want to say we are really going to miss you around here, Jack.”

I nodded my thanks.

“I am sure Angela will pick up without a blip.”

“She’s very good and she’s hungry, but she doesn’t have the chops. Not yet, at least, and that’s the problem, isn’t it? The newspaper is supposed to be the community’s watchdog and we’re turning it over to the puppies. Think of all the great journalism we’ve seen in our lifetimes. The corruption exposed, the public benefit. Where’s that going to come from now with every paper in the country getting shredded? Our government? No way. TV, the blogs? Forget it. My friend who took the buyout in Florida says corruption will be the new growth industry without the papers watching.”

She paused as if to ponder the sad state of things.

“Look, don’t get me wrong. I’m just depressed. Angela is great. She’ll do good work and in three or four years she’ll own that beat the way you own it now. But the point is, between now and then, how many stories will she miss? And how many of them would have never gotten by you?”

I only shrugged. These were questions that mattered to her but no longer to me. In twelve days I was out.

“Well,” she said after a delayed silence. “I’m sorry. I’ve always enjoyed working with you.”

“Well, I still have some time. Maybe I’ll find something really good to go out on.”

She smiled brightly.

“That would be great!”