He woke at seven-thirty.
I heard him before I saw him — the shift of the couch, the quiet of a man becoming conscious and remembering immediately where he was and what day it was. I was still in the kitchen. The coffee was still warm. The January morning was still gray and new outside the window.
His footsteps crossed the apartment.
He appeared in the kitchen doorway.
Hair disheveled. Shirt wrinkled from sleeping in it. The composure not yet fully assembled — the morning version of him, unmanaged, more real than anything I had catalogued in four years of careful observation.
He looked at me.
"You made coffee," he said.
"I always make coffee."
He came into the kitchen. I poured him a mug without being asked. He took it and stood beside me at the window and we both looked at the Janu
