I counted the bags of dried lentils. One hundred and forty. I moved to the next pallet. One hundred and forty-two.
I counted faster than I needed to. My charcoal pencil snapped against the wooden clipboard, a sharp, rhythmic sound that filled the freezing silence of the deep pantry. If I kept the rhythm fast enough, if I kept my eyes locked on the rough burlap and the chalk marks tallying the winter stores, there was no room in my head for anything else.
The morning possessed a specific, brittle quality. It was the kind of morning where the air felt too thin, where every sound echoed twice as loud against the stone. I was actively not thinking about the temperature of the air from the night before. I was not thinking about the way shadows had stretched across the floor, or the sudden, su
