The next Friday was seven days away.

I looked at the confirmation for a long time, and I turned the phone face down before Marcus could see how long, and I understood that something in me had changed its mind that afternoon without telling the rest of me yet.

I had stopped, somewhere between three o’clock and the last candle, being willing to keep paying for a seat at a table where my daughter’s birthday was the thing that could be moved.

Chapter 7 — The Two Numbers in One Room