My phone buzzed in my purse.

Gary’s name lit up the screen.

Two days later, the bank envelope lay flat on the end table where I had left it, the little window torn where the teller had pulled the check through.

I had opened the same book four mornings running and hadn’t turned a page past thirty.

Then the front door pushed in.

Gary still had his key.

“Just here for the drill, Patty,” he said, and went past me into the hall closet as if the house still let him through.