mpty, and I had not decided yet whe

home by six. Elise left ten minutes later, borrowing my umbrella without asking, the way she had borrowe

" I said to th

frightened me more than a

d the syrup off the counter, and sat down at the table with a pen and the pad of paper that lived beside the grocery

he top. Then I stared

felt like a house after a flood, everything still standing, but the floors soft, the walls remembering water. I could see the rid

ith the things

nt voice reading a statement that kept getting interrupted by a second, quieter voice off camera. No

at. I wrote it down, and then st

th? The

kness and thought, this is the sixth night, the sixth, and it was gone. Not erased, exactly. Just out of reach,

h a question mark. My hand wa

been less than two hours. You'v

night. A transit strike announced on Wednesday, called off on Thursday. The name of a pop star who would be hospitalized on the nineteenth, which sounded insan

useful. All o

ing where I'd dropped it on th

night. Temperatures dropping ele

ry carefully, like some

start to come apart. I put on jeans and my gray coat and walked to the corner store on the next bl

folded in quarters, a habit I'd always found charming. I bought a pac

rkers' union threatening

he paper's masthead, the date, the little weather icon in the corner

id. "Sorry.

he said, and went

oard. Past the bus stop, where three people waited and one of them was laughing into a phone. Past the pharmacy, my pharmacy

t of it for longe

ing at that same calendar through a smashed door. Same sign. Sa

h a paper bag, glanc

okay,

ad was a laugh, a small, ugly, wet thing. I put m

y arm, light, brief. "Bad week? Mine too. Ge

g, understanding that she was the first stranger who had touched me in this

walk the rest

fresh page. At the top, in bloc

had nothing to compare yet. Everything I did from here on, every purchase, every phone call, every word I said to

I wrote t

Not Elise, not D

ything that happens,

not trus

r a while. Then I added, unde

ld very still and listened for the other sound, the slow patient one from under the floor. I sat

felt better

ket of my coat, then my jeans, then the zippered pouch of my bag, and then I remembered it was in the s

se it caught on things. I turned it over in my fingers. It was warm from the sunlight on the dresser. Daniel had gotten down on one knee

part of me that still believed in the lavender detergent and

o people who loved me, I could at

my finger. It fit exa

he Mara who died at that door would have, and the Mara wh

ight? I'll make th

d almost at once. Then

tw. Something about work!!

sser and stood in the middle of my bedroom, in the pale ord

last family dinner I would ever coo