I drove home with the radio off and the folder buckled into the passenger seat like a passenger.

The checks arrived on the Fridays the order listed, and every one of them cleared.

The third one was due the last week of February.

On a Thursday close to the end of that month, I woke up at six, before Toby, and made oatmeal.

One bowl, not three.

I stirred it in the little pot that doesn’t burn and watched the trees along the back fence go from black to gray to something you could call morning.

The phone rang at twenty after six.