The clients already gone when I walked in, and the folder sliding across the mahogany as if it had been pushed.

She listened with the pot against her hip and never once told me I had done the right thing, which was the kindest thing anybody managed all day.

When I reached for my wallet, the astronaut came out of my jacket pocket with it and landed on the table between the salt and the ketchup.

Marlene picked it up.

Two inches of gray plastic, helmet and boots, the paint worn off one shoulder from a year in Lucy’s fist.

“Lucy put that in my coat Tuesday,” I said.