You take it because of the shift, because a night shift means you are not there at two in the morning, and two in the morning is when it happens.

I took the janitorial job because it was three to eleven-thirty and my sister Delfina finished her shift at two-fifty and could be at my apartment by three-fifteen, and because that meant Junie was with somebody who loved her from three-fifteen until I got home at midnight, and because at midnight I was in the building.

It is a stupid, superstitious arithmetic.

I knew it at the time.