“Justice…”
The sounds of nature were suddenly replaced by the sounds of clanking dishes and the scrape of a metal spatula on a gritty grill. The untranslatable tweets and squawks of birds became the unrecognizable mutterings of human words too numerous and low to make out, and the pungent funk of wet leaves and moss in the heat of summer was overtaken by the smoky smell of bacon.
“Huh?”
Preston was across from me, gawking, not the man I’d eaten sushi for, not Dougie. “I wanted to know if the meatloaf has stuff in it. I thought I might get some as takeout for dinner.”
“Stuff?” Some of what I had just relived was real, some pure imagination, maybe wishes, definitely second thoughts impossible to make real. “What kind of stuff?”
“Onions, chunks of tomatoes, mushrooms…My mom made it plain
