I stood at the kitchen counter, looking at the jar of instant coffee that had cost four dollars at the grocery on Tuesday.
The glass was cold in my hand, and the dark granules inside looked like dry soil.
In the basement, the washing machine finished its cycle with a dull thud against the concrete floor.
I went down the wooden stairs and began pulling Daniel’s work clothes out of the tub, the wet denim heavy and cold against my fingers.
In the small pocket of his gray trousers, my fingers touched something small and paper-dry.
I pulled out a small piece of folded notebook paper, no larger than a postage stamp, and smoothed it against the white lid of the dryer.
It had an eight-digit number written in pencil, the local area code faint but readable.
Daniel came down the cellar stairs, his boots loud on the pine treads before he stopped on the third step from the bottom.
“What is that?” he asked, his voice coming short through the low light.
I held the paper under the single lightbulb that hung from the joist.
