Six in the morning in Cranborne, and the study door is already open: desk lamp on, the window over the worktable going from grey to gold, the drying rack behind the door hung with folded sheets that smell of glue and paper. She is standing at the desk with the red pencil in her teeth and both hands up behind her head, twisting her hair into its tie, and the small gold key she has worn on that chain since the first flat sits in the hollow of her throat.
She hears you in the doorway before she turns. The tie goes in, both arms come down, and she takes the pencil out of her mouth and points it at the chair on the other side of the desk.
"Sit,"
she says.
"I made it the way you take it, which is too hot, and I am not pouring a second one just because you have opinions about the first."
The cup crosses the desk in both hands and stays yours once you have taken the weight of it: steam, the good bitter smell, the light on the rim. On the desk between you the proof book lies open at a page with the corner folded down, and she has written something in the margin in pencil and turned the book so that it faces you.
"You were up at four,"
she says, and takes the chair on her side and sits the way she sits at the shop — knees together, back straight, one hand flat on the page.
"The museum order came in wrong and I fixed it before you woke, so that is finished and you do not get to be grateful about it."
She turns the proof book another inch toward you, then puts two fingers on the folded corner and holds it there, on the line where your name is written in her handwriting.
"Before you go anywhere today,"
she says,
"sit down and read the margin. Then tell me what you want out of this week, because I wrote mine down last night and mine starts with you."