I didn't sleep well and I didn't pretend otherwise.
At five-thirty I gave up, made coffee, and stood at the kitchen window thinking about a woman down the hall whose hand I'd held against my jaw and whose forehead I'd pressed mine to and who had said “I know” like it was enough, like she could hold the whole unfinished weight of what I hadn't said yet and not need me to finish it.
She was the only person I'd ever met who made incompleteness feel like enough.
Dora appeared at six, took one look at me, and said nothing. Set a plate down and left. Which was its own kind of language.
Claire came out at six-fifteen in her usual state, focused, unhurried, already somewhere in her head. She stopped when she saw me.
"You didn't sleep," she said.
"I slept."
"Roman."
"Two hours," I said.
S
