“Morning and evening.”

“They’ll come back.

They always do.” He picked off a dead leaf and rolled it between two fingers.

“I’ll be all right, you know.

I’ve been running the numbers.”

“The numbers.”

“On the lottery.” He said it the way he talked about the price of gas.

“If a person takes the lump sum, they knock it down some, but it’s paid out all at once and the taxes come out of it and nobody comes around later asking questions.