Sometimes we sat in complete silence while the rain ran down the window, and the silence was its own kind of conversation, the kind only very old couples can have.

Sometimes he slept while I read old novels in the chair beside him, and sometimes he simply stared at the ceiling for hours, somewhere I could not follow.

I would reach over and take his hand on those afternoons, and he would squeeze it, and I would tell myself that wherever his mind had gone, it was somewhere peaceful.

I know better now.

On at least some of those afternoons he was not drifting toward peace at all; he was running the problem again, checking his work, walking through each move his sister might make and each counter he had prepared, the way he had once walked through our finances at the kitchen table on the first of every month.