“Fourteen days,” she said.

“That is when the lease starts.”

She turned the decree around so I could see it under her own hand, the dot after the R and all.

I read the name twice.

Arthur capped his pen and pushed the decree across the table.

“File copy goes up to the clerk in the morning,” he said.

“This one is yours to keep.”

Claire read it twice, then folded it along the crease he had already pressed with his thumbnail.