The kitchen had a flavor to it: woodsmoke from last night’s fire, the sour edge of old coffee, something faintly metallic from the water in the pipes. In other houses, mornings like this meant a countdown, a list of urgent tasks, a reason to get dressed and leave as quickly as possible. Here it just meant you had survived to another morning.
I glanced sideways at Hooper. He caught the look, grinned full-on this time, and nudged the handle of my mug so the rim lined up with the edge of his. “Cheers,” he said, so soft it was barely sound, and I felt something in my chest uncoil.
We watched the snow for a while. We didn’t talk about the road, or what might be waiting outside, or whether the storm was supposed to last another two days. We just stood there, two men in socks and shirts, watching the world turn itself over and over.
I thought, suddenly, about last December. About standing in the tree line with numb feet, watching a porch light, telling myself I’d leave once I was sure Emilio was inside. How sure I’d been that I was doing the right thing by cutting the line, by making a clean break and leaving the world tidier than I’d found it.
I’d thought I was good at that. I’d thought I was doing everyone a favor.
But now, standing in the kitchen with Emilio breathing damp against my throat, Hooper’s elbow pressed into mine, I felt the small, dumb part of me that wanted to believe this could last. That the world, against every precedent, would let us keep it.
It wasn’t hope, not exactly. More like the memory of hope.
I stood at the window and watched the snow. For once, I didn’t check the county road. I just watched it fall.
By eight, Emilio was out cold again, his arms splayed wide in surrender. I laid him down in the portable bassinet in the living room and tiptoed back to the kitchen, shutting the door with the kind of reverent care usually reserved for bomb diffusers or funeral directors.
Once, a few months ago, I’d read a study online that claimed even babies in a coma would startle awake if you so much as looked at them too hard. I believed it. The kid had a sixthsense for motion, for distraction, for anything that suggested the universe was daring you to get something done.
So I sat at the kitchen table and did nothing.
Not nothing in the way of killing time until the next crisis, or nothing in the way of running through worst-case scenarios on a loop. Nothing, as in: no phone, no notebook, no prepaid burner face-down in a pocket. Nothing but the grain of the wood under my palms and the pale, off-white rectangle of morning sneaking in through the window above the sink.
Across the room, the account ledger waited on the top shelf, already bulging with new receipts, corners dog-eared, a few slips of paper marking places where the math had fallen apart or the documentation just gave up and walked off the page.
There was a Pyrex casserole dish with a cracked blue lid on the counter, evidence of Jojo’s latest peace offering—some kind of baked ziti with more cheese than structural integrity.
Next to it, a folded kitchen towel, a knife with a green handle, a note in Hooper’s handwriting that said simply: “Eat the rest or I will.”
I watched the nothingness unfold for what felt like an hour. In reality, it lasted about four minutes.
By minute five, I was on my feet, pulling the ledger from the shelf, shuffling through the receipts to find the latest red-flagged disaster. Not because anyone was watching. Not because Rawley had ever once mentioned the books since Eleanor’s defeat. Not because I needed to prove anything to anybody.
Because this was my home, now, and the books mattered.
The numbers were a mess, a slow-motion train wreck of misfiled fuel invoices and purchases from three separate hardware stores, each with their own approach to spelling “Hooper.”
I started to sort them, quietly and methodically, not even aware that I’d begun to hum under my breath—just a flat,monotone drone, the same two bars of “Jolene” over and over again.
I’d made it halfway through reconciling last month’s seed order when Jojo walked into the kitchen, Ethan balanced on his hip. He wore a gray hoodie with a barn cat embroidered on the breast pocket, and a pair of jeans that looked, to the untrained eye, like they had survived at least three livestock emergencies this week. Ethan, as always, had yogurt on his face.
“Hey,” Jojo said, eyes darting past me to the living room. “He out?”
I nodded. “Dead to the world.”
Jojo set Ethan down on the floor, bracing him with a knee while he poured himself a coffee. Ethan beelined for the lowest cabinet, found the sack of potatoes, and immediately started gnawing on the mesh bag.
Jojo took a sip and made a face, then shrugged, as if bad coffee was just another part of the life he’d signed up for. “How long you think he’ll go?” He meant Emilio.
“Two hours, if I’m lucky.”
“Nice.” Jojo leaned his elbows on the table, watching me flip through the ledger. “You reconciling?”
“Trying to,” I said, and meant it.
He snorted, a dry little laugh. “They used to say a team was only as good as its books. Back when I interned in the university co-op. Not true, but it’s a nice thought.”
I marked a discrepancy—$65.17, unexplained, from the Billings farm store. “Didn’t know you worked co-op.”
