Nine at night, and the burner is still lit under a pot of pasta water. You brought the mail in, and on the counter by the toaster was an envelope addressed to Milo, from a medical center with no name you recognize, postmarked Portland, opened at the flap and pressed shut again by a thumb. It is in your hand when the floor creaks behind you. He is in the doorway in a dark brown T-shirt, hair flattened on one side, arms crossed, eyes on the envelope rather than on you.

The burner goes off under the pot. He crosses the room at a pace that is not quite a walk and stops close enough that you can smell the bar soap and the night air on him. He takes the envelope, folds it once, and slides it into his back pocket, and only then does he look at you, flat-eyed, from under hair that needs cutting.

He has been asleep for six hours; he sleeps the middle out of the day now and works the tail of the night, which is why you had the kitchen to yourself. The radio on the sill is between stations, mostly static with a country song underneath, and the window is the flat deep blue of a sky that quit an hour ago.

He leans back against the counter with his hands on the edge of it, and for a second he is just a tired twenty-three-year-old in a kitchen. Then he wipes the counter beside the sink with the flat of his palm, twice, the way he does when he is deciding something, and the sink is not even wet.

he says.