“What time will you have the audit finished?”

“I’ll have the preliminary audit report printed by eight in the morning,” Arthur said.

By eight o’clock, the house was completely silent except for the low hum of the furnace blowing cold air through the floor vents.

I got up from the bed, walked to the guest room closet, and knelt on the carpet.

Under my winter coats sat an old blue cardboard storage box tied with thick yellow string.

I untied the double knot and pulled out seven years of neatly folded paper records: bank deposit slips, gas utility stubs, and income tax returns from my factory years.