Samuel Reed Kept an Old Wooden Bat Behind the Pantry Door for Twenty Years

I carried the cups to the sink.

The blue one had a chip on the rim I had meant to sand down since spring, and I set it in the drainer without doing it.

“I have to be in town at one,” she said.

“Mrs.

Kettle wants the lease signed in ink.”

“Then you’d better eat before you go.”

She was out the door before I thought to ask who Mrs.

Kettle was.