Monday arrived with the quality of a held breath.
I woke before six, lay still in the dark, and counted four days forward from the moment I was in. Four days until the federal filing, give or take the margin Lucas had indicated. Four days of normal, of breakfast tables and family conversations and the careful performance of a household that did not yet know its foundations were being examined by people with federal authority and subpoena power.
Four days.
I got up and dressed in the dark and went downstairs before anyone else was moving.
The kitchen was empty. I made coffee and stood at the window and watched the garden resolve itself from dark shapes into distinct forms in the early light, the same ritual I had performed every morning since I had woken up in this life, and which had b
