The dates moved back through the spring and into the winter, past a Christmas, back through a summer, past another Christmas, another spring, and every single Friday carried the same amount beside it, exact, unbroken, a metronome I had set myself three years ago and then stopped hearing.

Sarah, he said.

I see it, I said.

And I kept scrolling until the dates stopped, and there it was, the very first one, three years back, five hundred and fifty dollars on a Friday I could barely remember agreeing to.

I printed it.

It took nine pages, and I had expected three years to look smaller once it was on paper, the way you expect a long trip to look short on a map.

Instead the stack kept growing, Friday after Friday in their neat rows, and when it was done Marcus did not read every line.