“You need to bring two printed copies of your motion and seven dollars in exact change,” the clerk told me over the phone.

I counted four five-dollar bills and two quarters out of my purse.

The children’s section of the library smelled of carpet shampoo and worn-out paperbacks.

Sophie sat on the blue rug by the picture book shelves with her gray stuffed rabbit tucked firmly under her left arm.

She was holding the bright purple plastic toy phone her grandmother Margaret had bought her off the discount rack at the pharmacy.

“Look, Mommy,” Sophie whispered, touching a little plastic bump near the speaker grille.