knows every regular by name and they know him. He’s — he has a very full life.”
“You gave him that.”
She looked at her hands again. “We gave each other that.”
He watched her.
“Every job I could get,” she said. “Cleaning, cashier, stocking shelves at the grocery chain on Delancey. The delivery runs are actually decent because I can do them in the evenings when Marcus is settled. The hours are flexible.”
She looked up at him with a smile that had some wryness in it. “You look like one of those people in ads for expensive watches. I can’t believe I said ‘sir’ to you.”
He laughed. Then he told her the thing he had been deciding whether to tell her since he crouched in front of her on the couch.
“The only person I’ve ever consistently measured anyone else against was a girl named Charlotte.”
