The wheels squeaked and stopped, and then a man said something to a woman that made her laugh, and the door thumped shut.

I counted the weeks backward to August, then to July, then to the spring, when my father had come up the porch with a pie and asked Lucas to cosign a line of credit.

Lucas had said no.

The pie went home in its tin.

Somebody had written my name in that lobby log before I gave it to them.

My hand stayed where it was.