Mike woke me up this morning at 5:30. He asked if he could come to work with me today. I said no.
He came back this afternoon after I got home from work to help me wash the dogs, then tagged along when I went grocery shopping. I let him push the cart.
Late this afternoon, before Mike arrived, I sat at Dr. Laighles’s desk in his robust leather chair in the library, my feet propped up. The smell of cigar smoke still lingers in the air. I could have mistaken today for a lazy Sunday afternoon if I didn’t know any better.
I tried imagining myself living here at the turn of the century, the sound of a horse-drawn carriage trotting by on the cobblestone, the clanging metal sounds of the trolley skipping over the tracks from Ashville down to Lakewood. Maybe I’d take in a baseball game, with the
