“I know,” he said softly.
He stood there waiting for me to leave first, his gravelly voice dropping off into the quiet of the morning.
I walked quickly past him toward the street where the slush had already frozen into hard, gray ridges.
My old sneakers slipped on the asphalt, the thin canvas letting the damp cold press straight through to my socks before I even reached the bus stop.
The medical clinic was short-staffed that morning, leaving me to handle three lines of ringing phones while typing up patient intake charts.
Every time the heavy front door opened, a gust of winter air swept through the lobby, reminding me of the draft that came through our kitchen window.
I kept thinking about the way my mother had trembled by the glass the night before.
By three in the afternoon, the sky had turned the color of wet slate, promising another two inches of snow before the evening commute.
When I got back to the rental house at four, the kitchen was quiet, but the smell of boiling celery and onion was already thick in the air.
