I became a metronome.

And I watched two vigilant children slowly, over a year of identical safe mornings, put down their vigilance, because you can only stay on guard so long in a place where nothing bad ever happens, and eventually the not-happening does its patient work, and the guard comes down, and underneath it there’s just a kid who wants pancakes.

Chapter 12 — Ordinary Days

Paulette was right that it wasn’t a straight line, and she was right that the medicine was ordinary days, and so I built ordinary days the way I build cabinets, carefully, to last.