He didn't cancel that week.
He came to the bakery on Thursday, back door, eight forty-seven, coffee from the Atlantic place and sat at the kitchen counter while I worked the morning prep and we talked about ordinary things with the careful attention of two people who had said something significant on the phone three days ago and hadn't yet decided what to do with it in person.
The 'I don't know' sat in the kitchen with us.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just present, the way difficult things were present when they hadn't been resolved occupying space without announcing themselves, the way a change in air pressure occupied a room before a storm.
He was warm. He was present. He covered my hand briefly when I set his coffee refill on the counter and the touch was the same touch it had alwa
