He doesn’t dial right away. Instead, he traces the edges of Elle’s plan, the ink smudged where they argued over numbers that were really about values. Fewer squad cars, more social workers. Fewer sirens, more therapists. Every line is a rebuke to the politics of fear that made Trump’s threat possible in the first place. If he caves, the city survives but shrinks, learning to live smaller, meaner, more afraid. If he resists, budgets may buckle, headlines may turn, and the people who believed in him may wonder how much pain their hope is worth.

When he finally lifts the phone, he is less afraid of the president than of himself. His voice, when it comes, is steady not because he is certain, but because he understands: governing by imagination is not safer than intimidation. It is simply the only way the promise meant anything at all.