The bookkeeper gathered her things without looking at either of us. Before she left, she placed a small white slip of paper on the desk. It was a file transfer note, dated Thursday, with Lorraine’s initials at the bottom.
The destination line had been left blank.
I picked it up.
Caleb held out his hand. “That belongs to the office.”
I folded the slip and put it in my pocket.
At 10:20 the next morning, Lorraine and I sat across from a lawyer in a small office in a strip mall. The waiting room had a vending machine that accepted dollar bills but rejected the five dollar bill I had tried to use for coffee. Lorraine had laughed at the machine and handed me three dollars and twenty-five cents in coins.
“You always were unlucky with those things,” she said.
I almost smiled. It was the sort of small remark she might have made before Hannah passed away, when an ordinary morning still belonged to all of us.
