(Kaelen)
I decide on a Wednesday.
I wake up and the light through the curtains is doing something ordinary and the house is quiet and I know before my feet hit the floor that today is the day I open the drawer.
Theron leaves early — northern perimeter check, something routine that was scheduled before Aldenvale and didn't get rescheduled. He tells me at breakfast. I nod. He reads my face the way he always does and I watch him almost ask something and then not.
"I'll be back by four," he says.
"Okay," I say.
He looks at me one more moment. Picks up his coffee cup, rinses it, sets it on the rack. Comes to where I'm sitting at the island and puts his hand on my jaw, brief and warm.
"Okay," he says back.
Then he leaves.
---
I give it an hour.
Not because I think he'll come back — he
