Grant pulled his wool hat down over his ears without turning around to look into the kitchen.

“I’ll be late coming home tonight,” he said.

The lock turned in the frame before she could ask about the bank receipt.

She walked four blocks through the cold, damp morning air to Broad Street for her five-hour shift.

At two fifteen in the afternoon, Caroline stood in the small storage room behind the kitchen of the Broad Street café.

The room smelled of roasted coffee beans, grease, and wet pine crates stacked against the back wall.

She emptied her apron pocket onto the scratched wooden counter, counting eleven dollars and forty cents in loose coins into a canvas bag.

Marcus, the café manager, set a wooden tray of clean glass mugs on the shelf above her head.

“Where’s the yellow pay envelope for this week?” Caroline asked.

Marcus wiped his hands on a blue dish towel and looked at the clock on the wall.

“Grant came by at noon while you were clearing the front booth,” Marcus said.

Caroline held the canvas bag still against her apron.

“Grant came here?”

“He said you needed your wages early to cover the lumber delivery down at the site,” Marcus said.