By the time the girls turned four, our studio employed nine people.

We had won a contract to redesign community rooms in several residential developments.

My finances were comfortable, though I still drove the same used hatchback and carried a canvas bag with broken handles.

I liked knowing exactly what we had earned.

The Boston trip had been for a meeting about one of those projects.

Seeing Nathaniel in the boarding line startled me, but I did not owe him either an explanation or a performance.

On the plane he asked whether I had remarried.