The thing about being the daily thread is that you notice when the pattern breaks, and noticing is the whole job, and one gray day in November noticing is what saved Emmitt Wilkes’s life.

I pulled up to Emmitt’s box at two-fifteen like always, and yesterday’s mail was still in it.

That’s all.

A small thing.

A single day’s mail, uncollected, where every other day for six years that box was emptied by noon because checking it was the shape of Emmitt’s morning.

Anyone else would have driven on.