I folded the last sleeve and set it on the pile.

“Soon.”

Barbara had given me a number on the stairs.

Nine days until the state bar complaint went in, unless Arthur withdrew on his own.

Nine days fit on two hands.

Sophie looked up at me.

“What do you want out of this?”

I thought of the lilies dropping petals on my counter, and the ring in the bathroom drawer upstairs, and the way my husband had guessed at a date like a man guessing at a stranger’s birthday.