Under it, the baby turned over like a page.

At two o’clock the kitchen smelled of toast, and I ate it standing up, because sitting down felt like giving in.

I opened Lucas’s ledger on the counter, then laid the wire authorization beside it, then the bank statement, then Edith’s certified copy with the county seal in the corner.

In the margin of a page of figures, in his small square hand, he had written: Pickles.

The seeded bread V likes.