She went to the courtyard at six.
The March morning was cold — March in Chicago was not the spring it tried to pass itself off as in other cities. It was still winter with aspirations, the specific quality of a season that had not yet committed to being what it was going to be. Cold and clear, with the particular air quality of early morning before the city had fully assembled itself.
She wrapped her coat around herself and sat on the low wall.
The courtyard in March looked different from every other season she had sat in it. The plants were beginning again — the first tentative green of things that had spent winter being what they were underneath the performance, the roots doing their quiet essential work. She had watched this courtyard through all its seasons now. Through its summer f
