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Suspicious. Very suspicious.

His watch was gone from the bedside table. His phone was gone. His clothes from the previous night had been folded over the chair with the precision of a man who believed disorder was the first stage of national collapse.

Even more suspicious.

I found the firebird notebook on my nightstand.

It had become thicker in six months. Not because I had suddenly turned into a woman overflowing with innocent hopes. I still wrote practical things by accident.

Replace warehouse manager at northern facility.

Review pension exposure.

Find out whether Donatella actually has human emotions.

Sal had drawn a line through the first two and added a question mark beside the third.

The pages about wants looked different. I’d stuck paper in, added extra envelopes and pouches. A long list of things, started so long ago.

I want another date.

Crossed out.

I want a home with you.

Crossed out.

I want Kiryl to choose what he studies.

Crossed out after he enrolled in a business program, dropped one accounting course after two weeks, and announced that economics was invented to punish decent people.

I want my mother’s companies back.

Crossed out.

I want to stop waking afraid.

Not crossed out.

Not completely.

But underneath it I had written:

Most mornings are good.

That counted for something.

The bedroom door opened, and Sal came in carrying a breakfast tray.

He wore dark trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. No jacket. No tie. His hair was still damp. A few silver threads at his temples caught the sun.

The tray held coffee, toast, strawberries, eggs, and enough food for a woman preparing to cross Siberia on foot.

I looked from the tray to him.

“What did you do?”

“Good morning to you too.”