Chapter 6: I Wasn't Taking a Break

Mom came up the stairs over the bakery on Sunday with a pot of chicken soup.

I had sublet the room on Wednesday.

It had a futon, a hot plate and a window that smelled of yeast from five in the morning.

She stood in the doorway and looked at my lamp on the floor.

"You can't live like this, sweetheart."

"I can. I'm doing it."

"Your father's email said you were taking a break. We're all so relieved."

"A few weeks to cool off, and then you come home."

"It wasn't a break," I said. "I quit."

"People say things."

"I didn't say it. I wrote it down and gave it to HR."

She set the soup on the hot plate, careful and slow, and I saw her hand tremble on the lid.

"Janie adores you," she said. "She cries every night about this."

"Does she cry about the room?"

"Sasha. Please come to Sunday dinner. For me."

"No."

She kissed my cheek and said she would pray for me, which she had never done.

Then she went down the stairs, and I stood at the window until her car pulled away.

She hadn't asked about the cut on my hand.

On Tuesday at 8:55 I sat on the bakery's back steps with my laptop and no job.

I had been a woman with a Tuesday for fourteen months. I didn't know what to do with my feet.

A shadow came across the alley.

Kirk stood at the foot of the steps in his work jacket, holding two coffees.

"Black, oat milk," he said, and held one out. "It's Tuesday."

"I don't work for Klingenberg Group any more."

"I know. I read the letter."

"You read my letter?"

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