I looked down at the heavy blue MMA glove lying on my newly trimmed lawn.

At eight fifteen the next morning, Emily was sitting across from me at the oak desk in my home office.

She pulled her dark ponytail over her right shoulder and squared up a stack of printed audit spreadsheets.

“The column totals for the regional freight accounts don’t balance,” she said, her words running together fast.

“The quarter closes in twelve days, and if these numbers are off by forty-two hundred dollars, the regional auditor’s going to flag the whole file.”

“We fix the balance sheet one line at a time,” I said.