She'd been over since dinner. Five hours. I'd asked her to come because I was in a bad spot and she'd just — come. Dropped what she was doing. It was past eleven now. We'd put our mugs in the sink a while back and she was at the door, putting her coat on, and as I stood in the hallway watching her work out the zipper I was trying to find the words for what she'd given me tonight. She said goodnight and that we should do this again soon. I said thank you, and I meant the whole long stretch of the evening, the whole weight of the thing I'd been carrying that she'd set down next to me for a while. I held the door open. I watched her get to the gate. She turned and waved. I closed the door and stood in the hallway for a minute because I didn't want to lose the warm fullness of what she'd just done.
