Keisha dreamed the aisle for a month and then the dream thinned. In the dream the locket opened and the lake was their lake, which it had not been. Waking was a correction. She told Marcus the correction. He said the brain wants one lake. She said it does not get one. He made coffee. Coffee was the sermon he was allowed. She drank it. The boy spilled cereal. The spill was ordinary. Ordinary was the prize. She cleaned it. Cleaning was not erasure. It was a floor. Floors continued.
Vera’s church asked her to help with the visitor book, a different book. She said no for a season. Seasons were fair. In the spring she said yes to coffee hour, not the book. Coffee hour was pouring. Pouring she could do. People still said he was a good man. She said he was a man. The shorter sentence was the truth she could stand in. A few people blinked. Ruth, visiting, heard and said good. Good traveled even in a fellowship hall. Vera poured another cup. The cup was not a pearl. She did not need pearls to pour. She wore them on Sunday service and took them off after. Off was a choice. Choices were how eleven years stopped being the only clock.
Nadine changed jobs in the fall, same city, a office with a window. The window looked at a parking lot. Lots did not pretend. She ate lunch at her desk and sometimes in the lot. Loretta said the lot was grim. Nadine said grim was quiet. Quiet was what the parlor had been for until it was not. She could use quiet. The box stayed on the shelf through the move. She labeled it papers. The label was a lie and a manners. Manners toward a future self who might not want to explain a locket to a mover. The mover did not ask. She was grateful again. The muscle worked.